


The Longest Day

by Drel_Murn



Series: This Is My Hope [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Earthbending & Earthbenders, Fairy Tale Style, Gen, Moral Lessons, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 15:39:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 50,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8452051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drel_Murn/pseuds/Drel_Murn
Summary: The world shuttered to a stop with Dusk died. The sun was left high in the sky, and the world burned under its unrelenting heat. All spirits leave blessing behind them, in hope that if they are ever killed, they will be brought back.





	1. Dayfall

I felt it when Shalim died.

 

It was a very distinct feeling, and not one that was pleasant. I’d been working something - making flat bread I think - when there was a sudden pain in my chest. I remember gasping at clutching at my chest, and not being able to breathe while a voice in the back of my mind cries out, and the starts muttering apologies.

 

I don’t know if anyone else did - I’m not the only one blessed by Shalim, but I’m the one closest to him, and the only one  _ changed _ by him. I long for the sky, I love fire, and I love the moon. I love change, something the earthbenders around me can’t seem to understand. Whenever I try to explain the feeling to my mama, she always sighs and shakes her head, calling me her little spiritling.

 

Avani, on the other hand, likens it to her own longing for change. She’s an earthbender, but unlike my parents who shift sandstone and condense sand, Avani loves the sand itself, loves sending it swirling in spirals, loves letting it slither along the ground. She was a noble woman once, and despite her hatred toward that class, she still carries the fan that her grandmother gave her. She was there with me that day, I think.

 

I was making flat bread, so I must have been by the fire. That day . . . I don’t really remember much of it but noise and colors. But perhaps that is where I should start. That’s my call to adventure after all.

 

* * *

 

So. There was noise.

 

_ Screaming crying  _ **_no! Shalim! Damn you! Damn you to the deepest depths of Koh’s lair!_ ** _ Oh Inari. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry. It hurts. Inari, it hurts! _

 

And there were colors.

 

_ Black of closed eyes - orange and red and yellow and blue fire. Sand. Darkness of our tents. The green of Avani’s eyes - the very typical Earth Kingdom green. Blacks and whites and blues and greens and yellows and tans and all of the different colors that my people dress in. _

 

And there was pain.

 

_ sharp and burning and freezing and cutting and slicing and piercing and shredding and tearing. _

 

And there was silence.

 

_. . . _

 

That is what I remember of the death of Shalim, the death of Dusk. Dusk, He of Indigo Skies, He who Set the Sun, He who had breathed life into my lungs when I was not even born yet.

 

I am the only one  _ changed _ by him. I look more of water than I do of earth. And that, I suppose, is how my story started - in the Si Wong desert that is my homeland, with noise and colors and pain and silence on my mind.

 

* * *

 

Now, I did not know what had happened when I woke up. At the time, I was not really in tune with Shalim at all. Despite his very tangible presence in my life, he was simply another of the great spirits to pray to, the water that pulled a curtain of silk for his Lady Tui, sibling to Dawn, the fire who prepared the way for his Lord Agni.

 

When I woke up, it was to frightened chaos. The sun had not set, but I did not know this. All I knew when I woke was that  Avani, sister of my spirit was sitting beside me and holding my hand.

 

Then she said, “The sun has not set. Lord Agni has not the strength to make way for his lady sister on his own. Lord Shalim is dead. Ilesh, Dusk is dead.”

 

And the world crashed down upon me.

 

* * *

 

I’d hit my head on the way down when Shalim’s death hit me, so I wasn’t steady enough to make it to my feet on my own. My body felt frozen as I leaned into Avani’s warm support. I could see others standing and helplessly.

 

This is the desert. We have long depended upon Dusk to bring us night’s shelter from Lord Agni’s burning ray, and without him, the desert shall grow hotter and hotter, little by little until those who have not left - like the lizardfrog that stays in the pot throughout each temperature change because it it just a little more - will find themselves baked to death, oasis or not.

 

After my life, I knew the temperatures, and this heat was not normal. When I finally turned to Avani and asked her quietly to help my back in, it was clear from her pursed lips that she knew something was wrong as well. I didn’t notice my mother’s lack of presence until Avani helped me dizzily sit down next to the fire. I remember the sudden dread I felt at the realization that my mother was not here.

 

I remember asking Avani where she was with stuttering words, trying to remember common when all I could think of was Mama leaving me. And I remember Avani’s face when it finally became clear what I was asking. That look was clear enough, and I know that my mother had fled and left me. My father . . . that’s a subject for later.

 

I remember wailing and driving my fists into the ground. I long for change, but my mother had been the solid thing in my life and for all that I claimed she was dragging me down, I still loved her for it.

 

Then, I made myself calm down and and I sat on my hands. “What do we do now?”

 

Because for all that the blessing had given me my love for the sun, it had given me a sense of duty as well. The sun must go down to make way for the moon.

 

To you listener, who braves the story of an old man, I will admit that I was still a child, born in that time when winter and spring are one, and with twelve summers to my name. I was, to put it very simply, a child, and I’m not sure what I thought Avani, who had perhaps one summer more than me, and I could do, my head injury aside. It’s a moot point now though.

 

Avani was a noble’s daughter, brought up on different legends than those my people told, and she smiled grimly, more a baring of her teeth than an expression of joy, as she snapped her ever present fan open.

 

“We could try for a revival.”

 

Those words are so clear in my memory, even now. They were a hint of hope in the brightness, a promise of cold in the heat.

 

Revivals were not among the tale of my peoples, for the spirits, much like the land, were ever changing and yet the same. To the last of them, they would not injure to kill others who were their kin of the bloody sand because the desert wash hash enough without resentment from your brothers. If something was wished of another it would be shared or given. That was our way of life.

 

Beyond the borders of my home, where Avani’s people live, their dwellings are more permanent that our tents, like the caves we spend time in occasionally, but they live there all year round. The concept was, and still rather is quite foreign and confining to me. But it is this difference that grows a special type of spirit, one usually formed of and protective of the family that has lived in their dwelling.

 

(Avani always claimed that I was being silly, and that a place was not needed, only a family. I disbelieved her.)

 

Because of this, if you want to truly eliminate a family, you must first kill the spirit that guards their home. Else, the spirit will steal away those that it can, starting from the youngest, and hide them and teach them of their family. To counter their death, spirits have often marked a child every generation, always one that would not have lived otherwise. This child has enough of the spirit in them that, should the spirit be killed, the child had the ability to call the spirit back from the scattering of  _ self _ that is death for spirits and ground them in the now at the cost of their own life.

 

I did notice the very pointed glances that she shot me, but I thought to myself that I couldn’t possibly be this blessed child. True, I would not have lived had Shalim not breathed life into me, but that same was true of both Bipin and Durjaya. I was changed, yes, but much of that could be explained away by my father, should I wish to think of him. I ignored the clear implications, and instead chose to ask Avani how we might go about finding such a child.

 

I’m fairly sure now, that I was more affected by that knock to the head than I thought at the time from the state of denial I was in.

 

Finding the child was not usually difficult, Avani explained to me, sending pointed glances. The spirits tend to be possessive, so it is quite clear who they have chosen.

 

Er, looking back at the amount of pointed looks I have had Avani use, perhaps I am mistaken in how obvious she was making it. I might only be inserting those because I regret very much so that I did not notice earlier.

 

Either way, after that, I asked Avani what we were supposed to do after that, and a thoughtful look crossed her face as she tapped her fan, once again folded against her lips before she admitted that she was unsure exactly what we should do. The stories had always glossed over the actual revival process.

 

“So,” I concluded. “We need a blessed of Shalim, and a priest. I wonder how long that will take?”

  
I don’t quite remember what Avani said next, the last thing I can remember before sleep takes me over is Avani smiling as she tugs my blankets off of me. With the sun stuck in the sky, they were quite unneeded.


	2. Books and Desriptions

Hm, no, that's salt. Oh. You're back already? Come along then. Now, let's see, where were we? I'm asleep after we figure out what to do? Alright. Hm.

 

When I woke up, I felt much better. I'm fairly sure that Avani healed me while I was asleep, possibly because she recognised just how deep into denial my injury was sending me, but either way, my head felt much clearer.

 

Avani was not sitting next to me, so when I shot up at the realization that I had volunteered myself as part of the effort to find some way to fix the mess keeping Agni in the sky.m And despite the fact that I had volunteered to help while I was delirious, the spirits wouldn't have really noticed or cared about what state I was in, so they would hold me to my promise and to any plan I can come up with.

 

I would like to note that the only reason I didn't run away to the caves and just live underground until someone else had fixed this, no matter what I had promised or planned, was because Avani walked in at that moment.

 

She greeted me and set down the many different water skins she's brought with her. I asked her where they'd come from, because that was quite a lot of water skins, and she told me, snapping out her fan, that she'd taken all of them from the abandoned tents.

 

"People are just leaving now, and not even bothering to take anything with them but their ostrich camels. I figured they wouldn't mind me salvaging their things."

 

I was of the opinion that the owners of the water skins would mind the theft very much so, but since they had abandoned them and we needed them . . . let's just say I didn't protest very hard and leave it at that.

 

At this point, I would like to remind you that I was still very much so in denial about who I was to Shalim. Thus with the plan of finding a priest and finding a blessed child, I needed information.

 

Again, I will give you background. Wan Shi Tong placed his library in a very strategic place - somewhere in the middle of the Si Wong desert. And the natives of the Si Wong desert - the Ramlah tribes, the Sandbenders, and the Beetle headed merchants - were not particularly interested in stealing the information, it was a quite secure place. That is, it was a secure place when the world wasn't ending.

 

There's a certain art to sneaking around in the desert, where there aren't buildings and plants to hide behind. You have two options: take forever as you carefully scout out the place you want to go to and hope that they don't move before you ghost to it during the night, or don't.

 

Avani and I were kids on our way to save the word. What do you think we did when we got to Wan Shi Tong's library?

 

I remember this part vividly. Wan Shi Tong was facing us when we walked in through the front door, two days after I woke.

 

"I've been expecting you," he said disapprovingly, staring down at us. "Your order is here."

 

He nudged a pile of books that were sitting on the desk.

 

"You were expecting us?"

 

"Yes," the giant owl spirit sighed. "The spirit world is all flustered, Tui is complaining that she can't be seen, plants are fighting with each other, and there's Ryung. He was quite nice, told me the news even though his job is currently obsolete. Asked me to put together a care package for you two should you come."

 

"Do you want something in return?" I asked carefully as I start to grab books from the pile and pass them to Avani.

 

"You need not," Wan Shi Tong said. "Your fee had been paid already. Now, if you don't mind, I need to go. The kitsune have brought me many new scrolls recently, and I need to catalogue them."

 

"Of course," I nod. "Wind to your wings and an eye to the sky."

 

He left, and Avani and I quickly gathered what scrolls I had not picked up already and exit the library quickly to get back to our ostrich camels.

 

We dared not talk until we had ridden for an hour for fear of spying ears.

 

I then asked Avani her opinion as we slowed down from the ground eating pace we had pushed our mounts into since we left the library.

 

"Why did Ryung help us, do you think?"

 

Again, remember I was in denial. Avani sent - might have sent me a rather pointed glance before she said lightly that perhaps Ryung rather like his duties as Dawn, Bringer of Agni's Light, Bearer of News Both Good and Bad. After all, spirits are defined by their purpose.

 

I remember glancing up at the sun from under the shelter of my head-wrap, and a third imagining, a third remembering, a third seeing Agni in the sky high above us. An image of is laughing face dances before me for a moment, superimposed over the image of him trying to move the sun himself.

 

Then I blinked and shook my head, dismissing it all as a mere figment of my imagination as I turned to Avani and asked her if she thought that we should start reading on our scrolls as we made our way to the nearest temple to find a priest, and she snapped her fan closed with a thoughtful look and replied that we probably should.

 

We slowed our ostrich camels down even further and  let them walk side by side as I pulled the first two books out of the bag.

 

"What is it?" Avani asked when I lingered over the the first book.

 

"It's a history of revivals, supposedly." I flipped it open to see if there was a summary. "It claims to record how the family spirits first came to be, revivals, and other related things."

 

"And the second book?"

 

I don't remember the title of the second book. The last thing I remember before waking up shivering and curled into a ball on the ground is reaching for the second book. Avani's arms are around my shoulders, and neither of us mention that book, Whatever it was. I can take a good guess on what it was about, considering other times I found myself shocked in the same manner.

 

That second book was most likely "Sun daisy flowers" or something like that. But I shouldn't be telling you this all out of order.

 

I read the book on revivals in the three days it takes to get to the northern river. The desert grew hotter around me, and the book slowly dragged me out of denial. Avani and I talked inside the tent whenever we decided that a day had passed, and we spoke of things that we had learned.

 

I never saw the cover of that book that made me catatonic, but I suspect that Avani was slowly reading it in between the other books that she devoured. She'd managed one a day so far, and I don't know how far she'd gotten with the second book, but just because she had managed to read so many books did not meant that she was far ahead of me. My history of revivals was just thicker than the other three books that Avani had read combined.

 

The book is . . . interesting, and had I not despised it for making me believe that I had to sacrifice myself to balance the world, I would have rather liked it. The first chapter was a frankly worded introduction to some of the terms that the book would be using, and an advisement that if I was not willing to believe in irreverance to the spirits, then the book was not for me.

 

The second chapter, as promised, was a description of how family spirits came into being. It describes the process of leaving for the spirit world and explains that it is not just your body you leave behind, but everything you don't want as well. In a long lived home, or a family line with ancient heirlooms. These leavings accumulate, and because of the nature of the leavings, they tend to be violent and fiercely loyal to their family.

 

The third chapter is on the time during which humans first realised that these spirits were vulnerable. It’s a sad chapter, at first describing the deaths of typical family spirits. Then, as time went by, it tells of the deaths of familial spirits that were less typical, the familial spirits of the very assassin and army clans that had first figured out ways to rid families of their spirits.

 

The spirits of these clans, while still with violence, tended to be much sweeter as the assassins left behind the traits they felt made them weaker in life. The book then goes on to explain that for a while, there were very few family spirits, and that those families who still had a familial spirit searched desperately for ways to protect their spirit.

 

The fourth chapter is the chapter on the revivals themselves. It described the process and - well, I didn't exactly read it in very much detail. I went straight for the section on requirements, which included a priest, and a child blessed by the family spirit. Below that, there was a short section on how to identify a blessed child.

 

In exact words, "You will often find your blessed child is odd, changed somehow by their contact with spirits. Perhaps it is their eyes, turning the exact shade of fire, or the color of sand stone, or perhaps it is their hair, severals hues too light. Search carefully, for some changes are explained off easily."

  
Am I boring you? No, don't answer, I didn't notice the time. Run along, you lot. Back to your parents. You can come visit me again tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here's my second chapter, clocking in at 1,672 words by itself, and bringing the total up to 3,371. I hope it's not too heavy on the world building.


	3. Meetings and Parting

You've come back. Good, I thought I might have scared you off yesterday with all of the boring talk. So, I rather figure that you probably don't want to hear more about that book I was reading. I'm quite sure that the first four chapters were enough.

 

Let's see. Avani and I had arrived at the norther river, or more accurately the Zhi River three days after we left the library. The river was surprisingly free, considering that the last time I had seen it, the banks were teeming with people as the Ba Sing Se merchants traded directly with the beetle headed merchants. I'd also vaguely expected at least some of the sandbender tribes or some Ramlah to have gathered here since the river would help keep the heat down.

 

We'd been a bit west of our destination, so we had to turn east and travel for half a day before we reached the widest part of the Zhi, where it connects to the Rukou River coming out of Ba Sing Se. Xiuxi, a small town, was there, on the south side of the river. Even though it was small, its position on one of the major trade routes to access Ba Sing Se gave it enough importance to have its own shaman. Avani and I didn't discuss the possibility that the shaman might have fled.

 

The greenery along the banks was lush, as green as the summer it was far to the south, and jarring compared to the winter that the north was supposed to be in.

 

The two of us arrived around what we called noon to an abandoned ghost town. Our ostrich camels stomped nervously in time with our movements as we shifted in the saddle, looking for anyone to talk to. My camel ostrich, Jaya, skittered nervously away from the slightly larger central house when a burst of noise came from it. I managed to quickly calm her down, and I glanced up at Avani with a question in my eyes.

 

Avani glanced at the building before looking back at me and nodding. I sighed in relief and gently urged Jaya over to the building and dismounted. I let her reins drop to the ground next to the side of the building with Avani's Jigme, and she snorted. Avani and I walked over to the door, and after exchanging a look, I opened the door.

 

"-where the sun's not shining! Oh, but look! It's around midnight, and the sun is still shining!stop telling me not to worry!"

 

"Enough," a rough voice says, as I blinked into the shaded interior of the building, trying to get my eyes to adjust. "We have guests."

 

My eyes adjusted in time for me to watch the woman scoff. "I did see the door open, Shaman."

 

"Well, I have more important things to do than to play your mediator anymore. Leave."

 

The woman glared the the shaman, but she didn't argue. She brushed past Avani and I in a huff. The shaman turned to the man and said something I wasn't paying any attention to because I was studying his face, trying to figure out where the feeling that he was familiar came from. I remember thinking that he must have been from some place for to the north because the mix of his features - light skin and sturdy features - wasn't anything I'd seen before. Despite that, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd seen him before.

 

His eyes were Air Nomad grey when he turned to watch the man exit with shoulders slumped in dejection before he turned and motioned for us to come in. He said, "What have you -

 

No wait, that was someone else. Um . . . he said . . . I think it was . . . oh yes, he said, "Come in you three."

 

I glanced behind me instinctively. I remember thinking how odd it was that Jaya hadn't reacted when the Shaman called again, "I do know that you're there, Ryung."

 

I don't remember what happened next, that name having triggered another attack.

 

 **_no! Shalim! Damn you! Damn you to the deepest depths of Koh's lair!_ ** _to help me with this? I'm not really the best at negotiat_ **_ing as he fought, the sound high and clear as he burn_ ** _ed into the pile of leaves. Come on, Shalim! It'll be fun!_ **_eyes burning gold in the mirror as he rests his chin on my shoulder. I_ ** _was so worried for you! At most a message should have taken_ **_five days Shalim! I'll be back before you know_ ** _this. If you do not grant me any one of these, I will kill your brother_ **_is amazing Shalim!_ **

 

Memories jumbled themselves together and tore at me as they fought, playing behind my eyes and switching randomly, voices and thoughts and descriptions jumbling together. This was the third time has experienced such an attack, and this time I found myself vaguely aware of my surroundings. There was a high keening noise, and warm arms around me as I shook.

 

It was Avani's arms around me, I found when the memories finally died away to humm at the back of my mind, but staring into my eyes, as if paralysed, was Ryung. His **_eyes burning gold_ ** and familiar like I had seen them everyday of my existence. Then the shaman cleared his throat.

 

I don't remember what was said. Ryung moved, and Avani moved, and was moved, but all I could do was watch.

 

It wasn't until Avani was urging me to get onto Jaya that I managed to stir myself. Ryung had left - it was surprising that a spirit as important as he was had five minutes for us, even if half of his job had been taken - and there were a couple more people out and about the village now.

 

I managed to shake myself awake. Let me tell you right now, I feel sorry for you if you are the blessed of a spirit. Those books never really mentioned the effects of a spirit's death on their blessed. Now, I can't go telling you anything about my story, that would be spoiling the ending, but I would like to say that it isn't mentioned anywhere that the blessed get flashback memories from their spirit. And it also seems that it doesn't usually take this long to put spirits back together either. As in, it usually take a day or two at most.

 

. . . What has it been so far? Six, seven days?

 

. . . I always had to be special, didn't I?

 

Anyways, the shaman hadn't known how to perform a revival, as we were apparently in another period where they had all died off. He did have some advice though. It's already been so long since Shalim was killed, that he not entirely sure what would happen, especially since Shalim is not a familial spirit, but one of the greater spirits.

 

I nodded, once Avani was done telling me what the shaman had said. I was shivery, and not at all alert in a way that would make for good decisions. It seemed that remembering the attack, and being aware of my surroundings throughout increased how much is affected me, and I was exhausted. I remember vaguely thinking about boats and ships and wondering as I slumped forward in the saddle.

 

-

 

I woke up in a tent I did not remember setting up, with the crackle of the fire and the murmuring of voices outside. I stuck my head out of the tent to see Avani and Ryung talking. It was an odd sight, made stranger by the fact that I couldn't seem to comprehend the sight of them together. My gaze focused on one, and the other seemed to be nothing more than a ghost, a figment of my imagination.

 

First it was Ryung, with his eyes burning gold. Ryung who laughed freely and fiercely, who I could depend upon to guard my back, who jumped into leaf piles, who volunteered to be messanger for the spirits for no reason.

 

Then it was Avani, the practical girl who ran away from her parents because she knew what she wanted, and found a place to stay in a culture very foreign to her own.  Avani with fans made from the strongest materials we knew of and with earthbending and the most beautiful green eyes I've seen.

 

In that moment I could have said "I love you", and not known who I was saying it to. Then Ryung stood, and after nodding to Avani, he left. My mind feels like it is being torn apart as the part of me that had recognised Ryung, the part of me that had trusted him, is shoved into a corner. The part of me that saw Avani as the one to be trusted the most collapsed suddenly without anything to fight against, before it withdrew and curled up in it’s part of my mind like a wounded kitten.

 

Avani sighed, her face abruptly sad as she turned to stir the ot over the fire.

 

"I know you're awake," she called gently, prompting me to  slip out of the tent

 

I don't remember what we talked about - I think I asked her about the weather, as if I couldn't see the rain clouds gathering in the sky on the horizon - and I ate. We packed up, rolling the cloth of the tent into a tight bundle to strap onto Jaya, and strapping the sticks together to strap to Jigme.

 

When I had everything strapped onto Jaya, I carefully tied the one square of oilcloth I had around everything to protect it from the rain. I sent another look at the grey sky, with clouds nearly blocking out the sun, before I drew up the hood of my outfit. TIme to ride.

  
Alright now, you lot. You should get back to your parents. I'm sure they worry about you enough without you coming home late. Don't you worry about me, I'll be here tomorrow when you come, just like I always am. No, I can't tell you anything else today, it's already past your bedtime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go! I'm using the Hou Tian World map for reference, and I've gone in and named all of the rivers, bays, and seas, so you'll probably be seeing many more unfamiliar names on bodies of water. Hope you like this!


	4. On Family

Oh, hello. Back again are you? Well let's see, where was I again? Ah, yes.

 

It rained as we rode west towards Xi Yan Lake. Avani explained her plan to me as we rode, shouting through the rain. It was an odd feeling, riding through the rain. In the tribes, we'd always stopped and set up camp if it was raining.

 

We didn't talk as we rode, and the rain made reading impossible, so I found myself thinking. Do you remember earlier, when I told you that most of Shalim's changes to me could be explained away by my father? Yes, I'll be telling you about him now.

 

So, my father's name was Sesi, and he was from the Southern Water Tribe. My mother met him up where the Zhi empties into Chameleon Bay. From the way my mother told the story, the two of them liked each other from  the day they met, by my Aunt Tejal tells the story differently. At the time, she said, my mother was thinking of leaving the desert. She's left the tribe and gone to the bay to look for a on one of the ferries.

 

Aunt Tejal had gone with her because she'd tried the same thing a couple of years before my mother, and she knew how to spot a good crew. She said that Sesi had catcalled my mother as she went by, and that my mother flew into a fury. Mom always shushed Aunt Tejal, exclaiming that she never was able to tell Sesi, my dad apart from his brother Himikei. Aunt Tenjal always scoffs and says that she's surprised my mother still believes that lie.

 

My mother claims that she first met Sesi in a bar, where he apologised to my mother. On both accounts, they had a whirlwind romance, and when my mother left Sesi to return to the desert the next summer, it was with a spring in her step and a child in her belly. That was me by the way. Surprisingly for the type of romance they had, my parents kept in touch with letters posted to the town they met.

 

Sesi was surprised to hear of me, but he sent money to support my mother as she raised me. A sweet gesture, but as money was not something used really when one is in the middle of the desert, a fairly useless one. I've met Sesi a couple of times when my mother took me there, and his ship happened to be docked, and it was easy to tell that there were no hard feelings between them.

 

I absently wondered what Sesi thought of Agni's unchanging position. It has been months since my mother had received even a letter because he had decided to return to the South Pole.

 

The thought of the south pole reminded me of the things he had talked about in his letters sometimes - the polar night where the sun does not come above the horizon and the midnight sun times where the where the sun does not go below the horizon.

 

I wondered for a moment if Sesi even knew that the sun was not setting. The south is as deep into the summer as the north is in the winter, so the south pole would have the sun up all the time anyways. Unless someone had taken the time to travel that far south, the southern water tribes might not even know that something is wrong with the sun elsewhere.

 

Linking the current situation to the midnight sun that Sesi had told me about did me no favors either. It reminded me of the stories he'd written about, the ones that were of people who had gone crazy from the lack of night, their minds unable to withstand the constant barrage of Agni's light. I didn't want to think of any people who might become like that here.

 

I was not surprised when Avani stopped us soon after that thought because we had been riding for hours. The rain was starting to let up, and while I would have normally found that a reason to continue, we'd just ridden for hours in the rain. Jaya drew level with Jigme, and Avani and I talked about what we were going to do for a moment before we dismounted.

 

The tent was easy enough to set up after a lifetime of doing so, and while the rain looked to be letting up right then, the clouds were still thick enough that I had no doubt that the rain would be back - if not soon, then at least some time while we would be sleeping. I glanced at Jaya and Jigme. They weren't the largest of ostrich camels around, but they were fairly large.

 

Avani was gathering wood from the trees that lined the bank of the Zhi river. It was wet wood so it would be hard to start, and very smoky, but it would save us from having to use any of the dried camel ostrich dung we had, and the smoke wouldn't be too much of a problem outside. We only needed the fire long enough to cook our dinner.

 

I glanced back at the two ostrich camels in time to catch Jaya shudder in a way reminiscent of a bear wolf attempting to rid itself of water, and that made up my mind. I carefully slid Jaya's, then Jigme's saddles and blankets off and set them down inside the tent.

 

"Come on lovely," I coaxed, making Jaya look up. Jaya had been mine as long as I'd been alive. She'd been born around the same time I was, and by the time she was old enough to ride, I was old enough to  ride on my own. She knew exactly what tone and what words I used when I was treating her. I opened the flap of the tent invitingly, and she perked up, skipping over to nudge me. I laughed, and opened the the flap a little more.

 

Jigme was watching with a tilted head, and I whistled to her. She wasn't as familiar with me, having been one of Aunt Tenjal's before we had come across Avani in the middle of the hills, bent and determined to escape her parents. She considered me for a moment before she ambled over and ducked her head to slip into the tent.

 

Avani had come back with the firewood, and she glanced at the tent as I let it close. "Again, Ilesh? The tent is going to smell of wet camel ostrich!"

 

I remember the laugh startled out of me because that was exactly what my mother would have said if she had been here. Avani laughed with me, but before I could help myself, my laughter turned into tears, and I was crying.

 

Avani came over to comfort me, but when I told her why through the tears, she laughed!

 

"She want to see if she could find your father, silly!"

 

I gaped at her in shock before I scrambled to ask her to repeat what she'd said. She does, looking over at me in concern. Another spark manages to light the tinder, and she quickly tended to it, calling for me to get the food out of our saddle bags.

 

After dinner, we put the fire out, and talked for a while. But soon we grew tired and went into sleep with Jaya and Jigma. When I woke, Avani was still asleep, so I settled in front of the tent, facing away from the bountiful river behind me and looking out over the barren desert. I wondered if my father ever felt the way I felt then, when it was the barren whiteness of his home before him, his family behind him, and no one else in sight. It was an oddly humbling feeling, and I couldn't help but shiver.

 

Then Avani was awake, and with her Jaya and Jigme found themselves restless. They barged out of the tent the moment I opened up an escape route to them, and Avani blinked sleepily at me.

 

I left her alone to wake up some more, and built up the fire again. The ostrich camels were happy with the greenery they found, which had sprouted with the rain. The moisture on the ground was evidence enough that it rained while we slept, and I was thankful that I let Jaya and Jigme sleep with us. Despite the newly soaked state of our firewood, I managed to have the fire going once again by the time Avani stumbled out of our tent.

 

She stared sleepily at me, and I watched in concern as she stumbled over to sit by the fire. She was usually very much a morning person was, so I was understandably worried. In fact, as I looked back she'd been less energetic, and she'd been chewing more of the peppermint leaves that she carried.

 

I decided to ask her if she felt well later, and went into the tent to grab some food. There was a couple of mesquitato cakes left, and after a moment's hesitation I grabbed two and headed back out. I got Avani to bend me a couple of stone slabs, and I set them up over the fire. They don't take as long as my mother's slab does to heat up, and I get the cakes heated up quickly. Avani accepted her cake, looking a little more awake and ate.

 

While she ate, I carried Jaya and Jigme’s saddles and blankets out of the tent and I quickly saddled them up. When she was done eating, Avani came to help me pack up the tent and our bedrolls, and strap them to the ostrich camels. Avani puts out the fire with a quick bunch of sand, and the slaps she bent for me to cook on are summarily returned to their former state of loose soil. After surveying the area, we mount and ride away. One more day before we get to Xi Yan Lake.

  
And that's all for today children. And don't you go moaning and groaning, I'll be here tomorrow like I always am. You can come and see me then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's my fourth chapter, with 1702 words, bringing my total up to 6758 words total! I hope you like it!


	5. In the City

Yes, yes, I can see that you're back. Yes, I gathered that you were impatient to get to a more interesting part of the story, and I'll try to oblige, but that depends on how far we manage to get today.

 

So, we arrived at the town by Xi Yan Lake near what we thought was the end of the day.

From the way people there acted, for them it was probably lunch. We passed through a bustling market as we followed instructions to the inn. The woman who greeted us at the inn looked exhausted, but she managed a tight smile as she talked.

 

The inn was five silvers a night for a room, she'd explained, and there was one bed per room. As long as there was room in the stables, we could stable our ostrich camels for free. If there wasn't room, then there was a corral nearby that was also free. We could get a meal for three silvers a person inside.

 

Avani and I asked for one room, no meal, and Avani pulled out five silver pieces off of one of her coin strings. The woman nods sharply and hands us and key attached to a block of wood with a number carved on it. She told us to try the stables for our ostrich camels first, and if there wasn't room, to ask for directions to the corral. Our room had a plaque with a matching number. We'd nodded and thanked her before steering Jaya and Jigme over to the stables.

 

It was an odd feeling to watch others leaving with a package of food tucked into their saddlebags, and see yet others flocking to the stables with ostrich horses and mongoose dragons. We'd barely been there for a second before a stable boy came up to us and quickly asked if we were here to stable Jaya and Jigme. We nodded, and he immediately yelled out "Stables nine and ten now occupied!"

 

We let him take Jaya and Jigme after we grabbed our saddle bags and the strapped up bundles of the tent. We found our room easily enough and settled into the bed with a sigh. The window was blocked by a piece of stone, and the room was darker than our tent had been since Shalim was killed. I fell asleep clutching at Avani.

 

I wake up slowly like always, and see Avani sitting on the chair in the corner of the small room. She'd smiled at me, looking so awake that I groaned at her. Then I remembered that she'd been having trouble sleeping lately, and I groaned to myself.

 

I got out of bed in my own time, and after a meal of mesquitato cakes and some water to wash them down, we left the room with our saddle bags slung over our shoulders. The key was handed to the man in front of the inn who was directing traffic, and we left to look for the local temple of Kun. We had to stop to ask for directions a couple of times before we made it to the modest stone building.

 

We entered and bowed to the image of Lady Kun engraved onto the wall before I rang the bell to call a priest. Shortly, footsteps could be heard from the stairs leading down, and a young man emerged soon after. He asked how he could help us, and Avani told him of what we had figured out so far. He listened to us patiently, then shook his head when we were done.

 

"We had already figured out all that you have told us, and while we do have a priest who knows how to perform the ceremony, we have neither a blessed child, nor do we have knowledge of where Shalim died," the priest had said, the words echoing oddly in my mind. "And it is unlikely that we will ever find a blessed child of Shalim. He seems not to have left any."

 

I remember blinking, a roaring filling my ears as the priest turn to bow to Lady Kun. 

 

"What do you mean, Shalim didn't leave any blessed children?" I asked, my voice off in my ears. "I know of ten by name, and I have met at least ninety more in my life."

 

The priest had shook his head and smiled sadly as he turned back to me. "I'm sorry child, but you must be mistaken. It is likely that either the spirits will find someone else to help Agni, or Order will dissolve back into Chaos."

 

"You are a priest," I had stated. "Can you see auras? Spirits?"

 

"Of course," the priest had stated calmly.

 

"Then look at me."

 

The priest, sighed, then obliged, eyes meeting mine for the first time. Then he went pale and ran down the stairs. And with his exit, I found myself suddenly exhausted once again, despite the good sleep I had just gotten. Blackness filled my sight for a moment, and I swayed, my head feeling light as gentle hands guided me down to sit on the floor and lean against a wall. 

 

I blinked away the spots slowly, and when I could see again, Avani was squatting in front of me with some cholla desert berries. I'd eaten them obediently, knowing what almost fainting feels like. As I ate, Avani told me that my eyes had glowed. 

 

When I was done  with the handful of berries she'd given me, some water, and a piece of flatbread that Avani had dug up from the bottom of my pack, there were footsteps on the stairs, and the young man soon appeared, leading an older man up the stairs.

 

"That one," the younger one said, gesturing at me. The older priest sighed and looked up at me in a way that told me he was expecting disappointment. I watched his eyes widen as he looked at me. I glanced backwards, towards the entrance of the temple, when I heard a whisper of sound, and I catch a pair of golden eyes watching me.

 

My breath caught, and I heard the priests behind me gasp, but all I could do again is watch. He wasn't smiling the same big grin that is all you see on his masks, but his brother had just died. There was a small smile on his face though, as he watched me.  His mask is meant to be the opposite of Shalim's mask, but all I can see is how similar they are. The only differences, truly are that Shalim's mask is white and the indigo of the night sky, as opposed to Ryung's light blue. The light blue of the sky during the day.

 

Ryung nodded at me, and was gone after I blinked. I turn back around to find the priests still staring at the spot that Ryung had been. Then the older one released a shaky breath and asked me if I would like to come discuss what to do next. I glanced over at Avani, then nodded.

 

We followed the priests down the stairs to a room that was lit by crystals that glows green, and some kind of moss lichen above that glows. There were priests sitting at several small round tables, and one of them rose with an angry expression on her faces as we came down the stairs. However, before she could say anything, the onder priest who had led us down grabbed her shoulders and frantically whispered something to her.

 

My attention was pulled from the pair of them by the younger priest, who eagerly asked what we'd been doing for the past twelve days. A couple more of the younger priests abandoned their books to gather around Avani and I as we told them what we'd done. They seem disappointed when they realise that I haven't really done much.

 

By the time we're done telling them what we've managed to do, the woman and the man are done talking, and the woman is watching me thoughtfully. She walks over to us as the younger priests disperse back to their books. She explains that she is the expert on revivals here, the latest of a line of priests that had learned the art to keep it alive during the dead period.

 

The death of Ryung was the death of a spirit on a scale that no one had encountered before. Then she asked my permission to test me - not all blessed children were able to pull a spirit back together, and she wanted to be sure I had enough of Shalim to call him.

 

I nodded, and she turned and called for one of the priests to get her some book. While we waited, she introduced herself as Ratna. The young woman who had responded to her call returned the book quickly, and handed it to Ratna. Ratna gave her a smile before sending her back to her book. Then she led us out of the room and down tunnel, past several doors and into a room with a bed and a chair.

 

Ratna sits down on the chair, and tells us to sit down on the bed. She explains that the best way to find out if a person is truly the blessed child of the spirit is to attempt to induce a flashback. The book is one that has much of Shalim's history, so something in it should have been able to make me remember. I press my lips together, but don't say a word of the images I had already seen.

 

Avani and I sat down on the bed, Avani flicking her fan open, and Ratna began to read. First, it was the story of Shalim's creation. Originally, Agni was responsible for moving the sun himself. But then, as he was given more responsibilities, he found that he no longer had the time. So he conferred with his sister Tui, and together with Order, they created a pair of spirits.

 

Ryung, with a mask of sky blue and white, was Dawn, meant to bring the sun into the word, and to raise it into the sky. Shalim, with a mask of indigo and white, was Dusk, meant to return the sun to the earth and bring night for Lady Tui.

 

And that's it for today. I need to go out berry picking. Back to your parents, you lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry this is late!


	6. Tested

Hello. Yes, yes, I can talk now. Alright so where were we? I know we were somewhere around the priest testing Ilesh, but where after she’d started? After creation? Alright.

 

After Ryung and Shalim were created, they were slowly given other duties, like all spirits. Ryung gained the duty of bringing messages and spreading news, while Shalim was given the task of helping each of the stars climb to their spot in the sky. Or a while, there was peace. Many spirits were created, and soon it grew to be that there was a spirit for every thing there was. Then, the war started.

 

I don’t remember what Ratna said after that. Images that had been playing in my head abruptly grew louder, and with Ratna’s voice narrating, I found myself adrift in a sea of memories.

 

_ This was the first great war between the spirits, _ the priest’s voice had whispered.  _ Spirits of the night, of the dark, of the deeps were jealous of the spirits of the day, jealous of the light. _

 

**There were eyes watching, always watching from below as Agni’s body was handed to me, eyes always watching as I passed his body to my brother in the spirit world.**

 

_ Both sides wanted the siblings. _

 

**The gnarled tree moaned as it shifted in the seat across from me. “Don’t you ever get jealous of your brother?” It had asked me, startling me and making me look up from my food. “You bring the darkness, don’t you support those in it who wish to be seen?” - “You were born in the day,” a sun daisy spirit whispered to me as she sharpened her knife**

 

_ Neither side got the siblings. _

 

**The stars, bringers of light in darkness gathered around me in constellations during the day, and Ryung’s little messenger sprites gathered around me at night, chattering and exchanging news and darting off. Both of them hiding the red under their fingernails, the blue that splattered their dresses. Both of them fiercely protective of me and Ryung, both of them stubbornly waiting for their replacements at the edge of the world and refusing to leave our side without them.**

 

_ And the war went on- _

 

**Ryung had laughed as he fought, laugh from, fear from giddiness that he was still alive to hand me the sun at noon, and I draw my sword as I accept the sun, I accept the sun and tie it to the milt of my sword so I don’t loose it as my stars leave to guard Shalim. Then I’ fighting, I’m fighting the sun daisy -**

 

“That’s enough,” Avani said coldly, her fan snapping shut. “Shalim.”

 

I’d jolted at her words, still half stuck in carving my way through spirits that want to leave the sun high in the sky and keep the land for themselves.

 

“Avani,” I’d gasped, turning to slice through a lava spirit. “Go! There isn’t any earth up here for you! Go!”

 

“Ilesh,” Avani said, and I jolted again. Her hands were on my shoulders, and for a moment I was reaching out - Then I collapsed. Avani wrapped her arms around me, muttering into my ear, warm breath ghosting over my neck. I could hear someone else whispering in my other ear, telling me not to worry, the war was over, I didn’t have to fight any more - It took me a while to calm down, and there was a setback when the second voice started to fade and I panicked because that meant he was dead - that he had died, and the voice came back, reassuring me that he wasn’t dead, that he just needed to go to work.

 

By the time I had settled down, the voice had faded once more, and the priest was watching me with a thoughtful expression.

 

“Satisfied?” Avani snapped, as sharp as the crack of a whip. Ratna had nodded slowly before standing.

 

“Yes,” she had replied, lingering on the word in a thoughtful manner. “It rather does, thank you.”

 

She’d gone on to instruct us to stay in the room, and said that she would bring us something to eat. Avani doesn’t say anything, simply wrapping me up and lying down with me. When Ratna return with a meal of miso soup and seasoned rice, I only manage to pick at the rice, and the soup stays untouched. After that, though I’m sure it’s not been anywhere near a day, Avani lies down with me again after muttering something to Ratna about Jaya and Jigme.

 

My sleep is broken, filled with images of spirits falling before me and the feeling of blood spraying across my face. Occasionally, everything slows to a halt as golden eyes meet mine. There’s a savage smile on his face, his hand in mine, on mine for a moment as he slips the thread that allows us to hold the sun over my wrist before he’s falling. My stars will guard him, now, just as they had guarded me. I remember worrying, because it was spring in the north, and fall in the south, and when winter came, when summer came, the stars would have to leave, they would have to stay in the winter sky until spring came again to release them.

 

Then I woke. I could hear Avani breathing the slow, deep breaths of someone who was sleeping, and I could hear the hissed whispers of an argument in the hallway beyond the door. The voices, were distracting me, and I found that I couldn’t help but listen to the argument. There was a young man, arguing that he couldn’t that he hadn’t studied long enough. The woman replied, sounding rather amused, that she was too old to go on adventures. The man protested that she was definitely young, but she scoffed and said he was younger. I felt an odd sleepy surprise as I realise that the woman is Ratna. She ends the argument with a firm statement that he would be going.

 

The door to the room opened, and Avani’s breath paused for a second before changing. I blinked at the two priests in the doorway. There’s Ratna, which is to be expected after what I just heard, and with her is the young man who had first answered the call of the bell when we arrived at the temple of Lady Kun both of them were carrying a try with miso soup and seasoned rice.

 

They greeted us as Avani sat up, and set the trays carefully side by side on the chair. Then Ratna introduced the young man to us as Manik, her son. She explained that she had to stay here to continue organising the local priests and to answer the questions of any priest who came, but that Manik knew the revival ritual and could come with us. Manik looked rather pained at that declaration, but didn’t protest his mother’s assertion.

 

She’d left then, leaving the three of us together, and Avani frowned as she picked up her bowl of rice and chopsticks, before asking why we needed to travel.

 

“I love Ilesh, but won’t drawing this out only make the situation worse?”

 

Manik had looked surprised as he glanced at her, and he’d asked if she truly didn’t know. “You need to be in the place the spirit died in order to perform the revival ceremony.”

 

Avani glanced up as if che could see the sun through the layers of stone and whatever else happened to be above us, and asked if he saw the problem with that. Manik had grimaced, and nodded before replying that that was why we traveled, as I finally wandered over to the chair to grab my bowl of miso soup and a spoon. My voice cracked as I asked about Jaya and Jigme.

 

Manik turned to look at me before he replied that they were fine. Avani glanced at me and tilted her head slightly, silently asking if I wanted her soup instead of my rice, and I nodded. Manik sat there awkwardly before he announced that he was going to go and pack his things. I finished off the last of my soup and called after him as he stepped out of the room, telling him to remember to pack a tent for himself as I reached for Avani’s soup.

 

It was quiet outside of  room when we slipped out, and headed back toward the room we’d first entered. I felt slightly trapped by the time inside and underground. It must have been night, or what passed for it without darkness, because the room was empty, and all the books had been put away. We settled ourselves down at one of the tables, the saddle bags draped over the table.

 

Manik rushed into the room frantically, a few minutes after we’d sat down, to find us flicking a small pebble back and forth. He glanced between us for a moment, as we looked up at him with disinterest before he crumpled onto the chair that Avani had created for him with a shift of her foot.

 

“I’m going to hate my life,” he moaned, burying his face in his hands as Avani and I returned to the pebble game.

 

“On the bright side, you don’t have any competition for the love interest,” I’d offered, leaning back to catch the pebble. “I’ll be dead, and you’ll be there to comfort her.”

 

Manik and Avani went still. Avani hadn’t said anything about it, but I had read the book. I knew what happened to the blessed children.

 

“You aren’t necessarily dead, you know?” Manik offered gently.

 

“But as a spirit, how much would I be able to interact with the living? How much of me would be left under one of the greater spirits?”

 

“You’re going to die?” Avani asked with a pale face, and I frowned.

 

“Didn’t you know?”

 

“No,” she whispered. “If I had know, I would have hidden you away. I never would have - did you really think so little of me?”

  
And that’s all for today. Bye children!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you are!


	7. Missing

Hello again. Yes, yes, I’ll tell you what happened. Now. Avani just found out that Ilesh was going to die because of the revival, right?

 

I had stared at Avani because it wasn’t that I had thought that she wanted me to die, but I thought that the love balance - she was an earthbender for all of the flexibility she showed, and while the little things way be acceptable, they’re not going to change the world. But . . . to hear that she would rather have me here with her than return the sun to it’s rightful path? “No. I didn’t think so little of you. But -”

 

“It’s too late now,” Manik interrupted. “No matter what you may have wanted, the priests know of you now. They won’t let you go because you suddenly found out the end result included your death and you decided that you didn’t want to go through with it.”

 

We fell into silence, and after a moment, Manik sighed and gently urged us up the stairs and out of the temple. Behind the temple, there was a little stable with a couple of ostrich horses, a mongoose dragon, and our ostrich camels. I didn’t begrudge Avani the comfort she took from Jigme, wrapping her arms round her neck and hiding her face in Jigme’s feathers for a moment before she went over to the saddle rack to take down her saddle. I silently handed her her saddlebags once she was done saddling Jigme.

 

There was an odd distance between us, and Manik turned to ask us where we were supposed to go. I stared at him blankly, and he rephrased the question.

 

_ Where would Shalim have been when he died? It was noon - _

 

**I step between realms and onto the soil of the human world. I smile slightly as I take a deep breath, and cast my eyes to the sky. Agni shines brightly, and I can see Ryung -**

 

“West,” I gasped. “As far to the west as we can go.”

 

He’d nodded, and the three of us mounted up. My hand pressed against my breast bone in unease. We had to ride south for a day towards the desert before we could turn west to meet the southern branch of the Luse river. We stopped for the night in the almost desert near the south-east curve of Full Moon Bay. We all made quick work of some bread and tofu before we crawled into our tents. Avani hadn’t said anything the whole evening other than to ask for a bowl of soup and say thank you, so I was glad when she didn’t protest or go stiff when I lay down next to her.

 

“You know I would never want that,” Avani said as I stare at the light that seeps through the fabric of the tent. “You’re the one who rescued me - why would I ever want you to die?”

 

“I know,” I said softly. I rolled over so that I was facing her and felt for her hand. “I know.”

 

I woke up that morning to emptiness on the other side of the tent and the taste of salt and iron. I lay there for a moment before I ruffled my hair and pulled on my outer robe. I stumbled out of the tent and sat down next to the fire. Manik nodded at me in greeting and returned to stirring the earthen pot over the fire. He handed me a bowl of the rice from the pot, and I managed to wake up enough to eat the rice instead of simply staring at it until it went cold.

 

“Where’s your friend?” he asked once I had finished the bowl and was feeling more lively. I blinked at him intelligently for a moment before I realized what he’d said, and I managed to reply that she wasn’t there. Manik frowned and shaded his eyes as he stood to look around. The frown didn’t fade as he sat down, and he told me that whatever she was doing, he couldn’t see her.

 

I blinked at him slowly as his words penetrated the fog of sleep and I blinked at him again before I turned frantically to glance at the tent behind me. The metallic tang of iron and salt, the tang of blood returned suddenly as I darted towards the tent, calling frantically for Avani.

 

The red of blood painted my vision, and I pulled aside the tent flap to see Ryung bound and gagged on the floor, his hair wild over the floor, and his mask half off his face. His exposed eye was closed with tears streaming out, and he flinched as I dropped to my knees and lay a hand on his shoulder.

 

A hand grasps my shoulder and turns me around to bury my face in a solid chest.  _ Listen to me. It’s not real. This is only a dream, it’s not real. _

 

“It’s a memory,” I mumbled into the black fabric as tears dripped down my face. “It was real.”

 

The hand rubbing my shoulders paused for a moment before it resumed. I _ t is no longer real in either case.  _

 

I blinked, and fell to my knees at the sudden lack of support. The tent was empty in front of me, and while I couldn’t help but fear what it meant for Avani, I also couldn’t help but feel relief that Ryung was safe, not bound, not gagged. The memory was unexpected, but after the visions I’d been having lately, I’d been expecting something like that to happen.

 

“Ilesh!” someone called loudly, right next to my ear, and I fell from my knees to my bottom in startlement.

 

“Ilesh, are you alright?” Manik asked, setting a hand on my shoulder. I manage to nod as I stare blankly at the tent that was empty of another human being. The distance that had been between Avani and I yesterday seemed to now be between myself and the world as Manik awkwardly but gently prompted me to first pack up the things within the tent and to saddle the ostrich camels, then to pack up the tent and to get everything tied up.

 

The world was too bright for me, the sand I had lived with all my life suddenly unbearable. My sweat glued me to the saddle, and my robes itched me. Jigme’s confused calls for Avani grated on my nerves, and I found my hand going to my neck over and over to worry at the beads I hadn’t really thought of in years, and likely wouldn’t have thought of for another three more had Shalim not died. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t concentrate on what was in front of me - sometimes I froze on Jaya’s back. I wanted to go back - to look for Avani because she was not there.

 

The oversensitivity slowly wore off as the day passed, and by the time we were setting up the tents, I was aware enough to be angry with myself. I left Manik out of my rage, and threw myself against imaginary opponents as I hid behind the bulk of my tent. Iron and salt filled my my mouth in ebbing and flowing tides, and sometimes I fought not for my anger, but for the sibling that would meet me, the sibling that would defend me from Agni himself with fans as delicate as a spider beetle’s web. I fought for the sibling who lost, the sibling who was captured, the person who depended upon me as much as I did on them.

 

I turned, leg sweeping around solidly to suddenly meet a block just as solid as I was. I didn’t even hesitate to swing back around and stomp on the person’s foot - I miss - and just keep fighting, just keep kicking and punching with my eyes shut until I‘m panting. The person never once tried to hit me back, only blocking and deflecting over and over again.

 

When I finally collapsed, there was no sense of failure, only a faint feeling of satisfaction as I let my head roll backwards and opened my eyes to the sky.

 

“You’re always fighting when we meet,” a male voice said from beside me, and I glanced over to look at Ryung. His mask looked like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be flesh or wood, and his hair was splayed out over the ground - my vision bleed red for a moment before fingers at my temples brought me back to the present. Gold eyes were looking into mine, and his mask was pushed up and holding his hair back, and he sighed as he lay back down. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You were always supposed to have a choice. It might not have been a good choice, but Inari! There was supposed to be a choice.”

 

I licked my dry lips, then fumbled through my robes for the container of aloe olive gel that my mother always told me to put on if I started licking my lips. I applied a thin layer and tucked the container away. “Do you know where Avani is?”

 

“I don’t.”

 

“Could you deliver a message?”

 

“Of course. I can always deliver a message.”

 

“Tell her I miss her.”

 

I’m not entirely sure what happened next - I think I fell asleep - and I woke up the next morning with a red bat carved into a bead that will fit on my necklace. It’s very much a fire nation bead, and with it, I have a bead to represent each of the four elements. Water from my father, made from the strange half transparent, half opaque stone used commonly by the Water Tribes. Earth from my mother, the earthbender who called me her little spiritling. Air from my tribe, from the nation I was born to, from the nation I have watched around me since I was born. And now Fire for a sibling I knew before I knew myself, the spirit who loved me when I knew nothing of him. Fire, and good luck.

  
There you go children. Now, run along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter! Hope you like it!


	8. Gifts

Oh, hello again. Back for more? Alright, I’d just told you - Yes.

 

I left the tent yawning, the bat bead strung on my necklace opposite the water bead from my father. Manik is sitting in front of the fire with an earthen pot once again, thought this time I could smell the salt of a soup that he had probably reheated from last night. We were on the bank of the Luse River, something I hadn’t noticed yesterday in my grief, and water wasn’t as precious with a fresh source.

 

I contemplated Manik as we sat there, and he looked at something he held in the palm of his hand, occasionally twitching a finger. Yesterday was odd. I found out my friend was missing, and instead of staying with me to search for her, he packed me onto Jaya and moved on.

 

“Manik,” I said slowly, and the priest looked up from whatever it was he has in his palm. “Manik, why didn’t you help me look for Avani yesterday?”

 

“Avani?” Manik asked, looking confused as he tucked the thing he had been looking at into a pocket in order to take the cover off of the pot over the fire. A look of realization crossed his face as he reached for the ground at his side and made two earth bowls. “Oh! You mean your meerkat rabbit! Don’t you remember? You told me she’d catch up eventually.”

 

“Right,” I replied, feeling as if I had been punched in the gut. Manik didn’t look up from the bowls as he carefully filled them both with miso soup from the pot. “Sorry, I’m not much of a morning person.”

 

“I’d figured that out already,” Manik replied with a smile as he handed me one of the bowls. I managed to smile at him easily even as my heart raced. I managed to make small talk, but my heart wasn’t in it. I barely managed to swallow down the soup, and as I ate, another thought occurred to me. If whoever it was took Avani so easily, they could probably take Manik just as easily. They could probably take me just as easily. When I was done, we packed up again.

 

I prayed to Ryung, letting him know what had happened to Manik. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, I sent a small prayer to Hei Jin, one of Ryung’s messenger spirits that had fought for me most fervently in the flashes of the war that I remember. I was not entirely sure what to expect - I’d certainly never heard of Hei Jin or any of the messenger sprites before Shalim’s life started bleeding into mine. Either way, no one replied, and after a while I turned to ask Manik what he’s fiddling with.

 

He glanced over at me for a moment before he tossed a thin rock the size of my palm over to me. I glanced over it and frowned at it. There was a big square in the middle divided into four triangles, two darker, two lighter, with one more dark triangle leading out from each of the corners of the square. There were a bunch of smaller circles scattered over with little things like flowers and coins engraved into them. I tossed it back and asked him what it was.

 

“You don’t know what Pai Sho is?”

 

“That’s what it is? We play mancala more.”

 

“Would you like to learn?” he asked, and I shook my head no. I didn’t want to play games when my friend was missing - _bound and gagged with wild hair_ \- or worse. We didn’t really talk for the rest of the day, and when Ryung came to me as I lay in my tent staying at the light shifting in. I ask him if he had found Avani when I heard his footsteps. He stepped before me, and after a long moment of silence, he nodded, his mask seeming to smile wider as he told me the exact island Avani was on.

 

“So it was those who wish for the light to stay always,” I murmured, feeling older than my years. My mind flashed to that one spirit - the sun daisy - I found myself always fighting, the one spirits that was always so interested in me. I wondered vaguely if she had anything to do with this. I wonder if she was even still alive. “Did Avani have a message for me?”

 

“She asked me to tell you to think about your tribe. She said to think about Jaya, to think about little Alpa. She said to think of Bina, of Kala, of Prachi.”

 

I blinked at him as I digested his words, then I gasped and clutched at my head. It was like sitting up and shaking the sand off after a surprise sandstorm. I was suddenly free of some great weight, the air was new and fresh after hours of sheltering under my robes, and fear that had pressed upon me lightened. I gasped and pressed a hand to my forehead as memories, thoughts, feelings I hadn’t even been aware of dispersed abruptly.

 

“Oh,” I murmured, swaying lightly on my feet. “Oh. That was quite nice. What was that?”

 

Ryung’s grin didn’t change as he replied, “That was you. The bleed through from Shalim was too much for the human body - and I couldn’t help because - well, to put it simply, I did not know you when you were human and nothing more. I would have always pushed you towards something you were not - I would have pushed you to act more like my brother. You are not my brother, and you never will be.”

 

He sighed as he took his mask off, tucked it under his arm, and ran his fingers through his hair, ” You will be . . . how do I explain it . . . you will be diamond to my brother’s earth. You will be a small, valuable part of him, but you are not him.”

 

I stared at him for a moment before I nodded slowly. Now that I could think without the weight of the memories, I remembered the prayers I sent to him and to Hei Jin, and I asked him if he’d received my prayers. He looked surprised for a moment before his gaze sent distant and his lips moved. Then he refocused on me, shook his head, and explained that I must have been one of the many he lost because there were simply so many people asking for the safe transportation of their packages that he delegated almost all of the work.

 

At this point I would like to not that I am remembering so many conversations now that I’m thinking about this more.

 

As for my prayers to Hei Jin - “You remember her?”

 

“Not anymore,” I said. “Mostly, I remember remembering her. She was blue like the ocean near shore, and shaped like a pure fox - like a kitsune - sometimes. And . . . she fought fiercely for _me_ \-  for Shalim, not because he was your brother, but because she genuinely like him.”

 

“I can check with her, but . . . prayers are odd things. My sprites came into existence because I needed them, but no humans ever knew of their existence. Prayers . . . you’re supposed to be able to hear them because they are meant for you. But my sprites never were needed like that except for by me.” Ryung’s gaze went unfocused again as he muttered to himself before he pulled his attention back to me. “You should sleep. You look exhausted. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

He disappeared between one eye heavy blink and the next, and I couldn’t find it in myself to protest to the empty air. I yawned as I let myself slump back down onto my bedroll. I realized, as I shook the bag of clothes that I rested my head on at night, that I forgot to tell Ryung about Manik and the memory manipulation. I was asleep before my head hit my pillow.

 

When I next woke up, there’s a pile of green and yellow clothes laying on the ground before me. Based on what I’ve seen in ports and the like, they’re the style that everyone and no one wears. I look them over and raise an eyebrow. I know good quality fabric and I know dyes and weaves - and are those fire thorns? If my mother taught me correctly, this fabric is good Earth Kingdom linen cotton, the weave is standard Air Nomad - very thick to insulate and protect from temperature extremes, the dye is actually Southern Water Tribe - a rare one that sell for very high prices to nobles and kings around the Earth Kingdoms, and these firethorns - they’re a symbol of protection and are embroidered, once again, with Southern Water Tribe dye.

 

If I remember fire nation customs correctly, giving someone a gift meant to represent the four elements is a sign of great respect. This clothing though - with so much effort that went into its making - is probably worth easily as much as the fancy robes worn by nobles. Air Nomad weaving is difficult due to the extra effort it takes to make the fabric thicker, and the weavers usually refuse to work with a different type of thread because they know how to work the hemp ramie that grows closest to them.

 

I glanced down at the robes I was wearing, which could probably have done with a wash, then over at the subtly rich outfit before I decide. I quickly pull off my under robe and put on the Earth Kingdom clothes that would allow me to fit in. I’ve wor Earth styles before, but the difference is always odd at first as I forget the strange way things are tied, and the different fit of the shoes. I left the tent feeling, for once, more cheerful than I normally was. It’ll take us another day, most likely before the river widens enough to support a village, but I’ll be ready when it does.

  
There you are children, I hope that was enough for you rascals. Now, hurry on home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, here's the next chapter!


	9. Midnight Sun Madness

Back already are you? Well . . . I ended with wearing the robe.

 

I sighed as I contemplated. The sky was the same bright blue it had been for fifteen days, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I was even moving as Jaya carried me. Every step I get closer to returning Shalim to the world, but it felt like I slid back one step for every two I took. Shalim died on the Fire Islands. Avani lies captured on one of the Fire Islands. Spirits that wished Shalim dead so they could live always in the glory of Agni’s light lived on the Fire Islands, and there was no way they would allow me to pass unhindered.

 

It’s only a day over two weeks since Shalim died, and already the bleed over between my personality and Shalim’s had nearly overwhelmed me once, and there were at least three more days to go before we got to a port, not to mention the time it would take us to travel to the far west side of the Fire Islands. There shouldn’t have been any bleed over until the actual ceremonial revival, when the priest put out a call for all of the pieces of self.

 

Enough time had passed when we reached the town at the fork of the river that we decided to sleep there. The town was oddly silent as we rode in, but that could be explained away as all of the people sleeping. The town was much closer to the river than the path that had slowly taken shape along the river’s bank. In fact, some houses were built on top of an arch that ended in the southern branch of the Luse River. I glanced at those houses as we went past, and while at first I thought that the ends in the river were going farther and farther from the shore, I realized after a moment that, from the water marks, it was actually the river that was withdrawing.

 

We had to wander the town a bit before we found the inn, and all throughout it there was an odd silence that made the hairs on the back rise up. The inn was a small, one level building with a carved wooden sign stating its purpose nailed to the wall above the door. We glanced around, but there wasn’t any apparent stable. Manik and I exchanged glances before I shrugged and slid out of the saddle, Avani’s reins dropping to the ground. Manik slid off after me, and together, we entered the inn. Inside, we could hear someone crooning a lullaby, and while I felt slightly relieved, the prickly feeling of danger didn’t let up.

 

“Hello!” Manik called. “Can we have a room for the night?”

 

The singing stopped, and there was silence for a moment before there was the sound of wood creaking. Then, on the other side of the room, behind the rows of tables and benches, a door opens. “Hello?”

 

“You said you wanted a room for the night?” the woman asks, silhouetted by the light of the lantern in the other room

 

“If we could please,” Manik said, and I found my hand creeping down to my side so that I could grab the handle of my knife.

 

“Yes, of course I have room. Can you pay five silvers a night?” the woman asked as we made our way towards her through the shadowed dining area. Manik nodded easily, and I manage to smile at the woman as we passed her and went into the little hallway beyond the dining area, lit by a single lantern. There was a couch draped with a blanket, and a cradle sitting next to it, no doubt for the baby we heard her crooning to earlier. I walk over to the cradle, curious to see if Earth Kingdom babies looked any different than those of my tribe. I got there just as she closed the door with a faint thud, and my eyes widened.

 

“Of course, you could also stay here forever. It’s cheaper,” the woman said, and I threw myself at Manik in time to push him out of the way of the knife that the woman threw before he could question what the woman had said.

 

“Run!” I hissed at him, drawing my knife. I twisted around just in time to deflect another knife, and the woman threw herself at me with a wail.

 

“Everyone leaves me!  But you - I can make you stay!” she screamed, throwing her fists at me wildly, and I manage to deflect each one off to the side as Manik scrambles backwards behind me. “You’ll stay with me! I made everyone else stay, and I can make you stay too!”

 

I managed to spare a brief moment to make sure that Manik was out from behind me before I drove the base of my palm into the woman’s face. Her head snapped back, and she hit the ground with a thud.

 

“Go find some rope,” I called to Manik as I trapped the woman’s arms above her head and sat down on her stomach. “Go!”

 

Manik glanced at me again before he darted over to the first room and threw the door open. I listen to him rummage through that room, then the next as the woman moaned and tossed her head. He came back just as the woman’s eyes flew open and she tried to push me away. “No! Let me go! You have to stay! You have to let me help you! You have to stay!”

 

Her words broke down into wailing, then broken sobs as I carefully tied her up the way my mother had taught me. By the time we were done, she was full on crying, tears running down her cheeks as she wailed about everyone leaving her behind.

 

“What about the baby?” Manik asked, getting up and starting towards the crib. I stopped him before he could get close enough to looking into it, and he glanced down at me.

 

“It’s too late already. That’s how I knew to warn you.”

 

“It’s -” He couldn’t make himself finish the sentence, a look of disgust crossing his face, quickly followed by a look of sorrow. He moved towards the crib again, and this time I didn’t stop him.

 

“Oh,” he said sadly, reaching down to pick up the child. I looked away after a moment, not wanting to see the blankets stained red and brown with blood. The woman jerked and started wailing about her baby. He gently tucked the baby into the blankets and turned to me. “Come on, let’s go see if there’s anyone else here.”

 

I glanced at him dubiously, then down at the woman. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I definitely won’t be able to carry her, and I have no doubt that she’ll escape quickly if we leave her alone.”

 

“Oh, right,” Manik said, looking a little embarrassed. He holds out his arms,offering the little dead baby, and I quickly rolled off of the woman to avoid anything she attempted. I stood and carefully accepted the dead baby from Manik. The woman squirmed, but Manik easily managed to duck her wild flailing and grasp her shoulders and legs to lift her into a somewhat awkward princess cary. 

 

With a careful hand, I opened the door back into the dining area, and allow Manik room to  walk past me, and when we got there, I opened the main door. There’s a boy scurrying across the street as I swing the door open, and he freezes at the sight of us for a moment before he darts out of sight between houses with a squeak.

 

I glance over at Manik, but he’s watching the woman in his arms with a frown. He goes past me, and sets the woman down in the center of the road, and turns to look at me helplessly. I catch a glimpse of the boy who’d hidden from us glancing out from behind the giant potted plant that he had hidden behind, and I nod at him. Manik glanced over at the child, then back at me.

 

“Hey,” I called softly. The boy flinched back into his hiding spot, but after a moment, he peered out. “Hey, do you know where the adults are?”

 

“They’s a dead,” the kid said warily. “They all met to talk ‘bout the sun stayin’ up at Jyoti’s, an’ next thing we knew, they were all dead. Jyoti hauled some o’ ‘em out ‘ere, set ‘em up like they was having a meal. Aditya went up to her to talk, an’ she killed ‘im too.”

 

I stumbled slightly when Jaya nudged me, and I turned to pet her as Manik asked more questions. Slowly, more of what happened came out, and as he got more comfortable with us, the kid slowly came more and more out of his hiding place. Truthfully, there wasn’t much to what had happened. The adults had gathered in the inn, as the largest public space available, to talk about what had happened with the sun.

 

Apparently, no one from out of town had come since the sun had simply stopped, and after five days, the adults had finally organised themselves enough to meet and talk about the problem. Only, the innkeeper - Jyoti had come down with Midnight Sun Madness, of the kind that made her murderous, and killed all of the adults and anyone she had caught sight of afterwards.

 

“Can you go get everyone who’s alive right now?” Manik asked gently, before he yawned. “You can see - “

 

He broke off to yawn again. “You can see that she’s not going to be killing anyone anymore. You should decide what to do with her. I - we - will be inside sleeping.”

 

“Yessir,” the boy said and ran off down the street.

 

“Come on,” Manik said, yawning again. “Let’s go in so we can sleep.”

 

“The baby,” I remind him, and he glances at me, at the dead baby in my arms. He sweeps out a hand, and bends a cradle of earth next to the inn.

 

“Put her there.”

 

I gently set the baby into the cradle, and after a glance at her peaceful face, I followed Manik into the inn.

  
Now, you lot should go home now. Don’t make your parents miss you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Here's my next chapter, bringing me up to 15,275 words total!


	10. Contemplation on Transportation

You do know I can see you there, right? Come one out you lot. Now, you’re looking for the next bit of my story, right? Where’d I leave off again? Ah, yes, the mad woman.

Well, to start with, I didn’t stay inside the inn too long. The feeling of danger had decreased drastically when I managed to pin the woman down, but the inn had that odd feeling of spirit ground, and after long, I found myself driven out of there to go sit next to Jaya outside. There was a group of children gathered around the madwoman, many of whom were older than me, and they all glanced over at me for a moment as I exited the building before turning back to each other to keep talking.

 

Jaya - who had folded her legs so that she could sit down - occasionally turned to preen my hair, and I relaxed slowly against her side as the children and teens kept talking, creating a low background hum of noise.

 

“Hey. Hey, wake up.” I blinked sleepily at the person in front of me, trying to remember what had happened. “You slept out here. Are you alright?”

 

“Manik. Hi,” I said slowly. “What - what’d you say?”

 

“You slept out here,” Manik repeated himself, drawing back slightly. “Do you feel alright?”

 

“Oh, yeah. I’m fine,” I replied. “Wait . . . what?”

 

Manik sighed and shook his head as he stepped back. “Never mind. I see that you’re the same pillar of clarity and eloquence as always.”

 

“What?” I asked sleepily.

 

“I have food.”

 

“Oh! Oh, that’s good,” I said with a yawn. “Food is good.”

 

“And you need to get up.”

 

“Oh.” I pushed myself up awkwardly, making Jaya ruffle her feathers, then turn to look at Manik. He sighed and gestured for me to follow him. By the time the children of the village appeared, I was feeling much more awake after some food. They’d streamed into the dining area as I sat there drinking a cup of green tea next to Manik. The kids - it was odd to think of them as such because I was younger than a good third - milled around for a little while before they sat down, gathered together in little groups. There was some organization, it seemed, because when twelve people broke off to stand in front of us after everyone was seated - no one protested.

 

“So, can ya’ take ‘er with ya’?” the eldest before us asked, and Manik shook his head.

 

“We don’t have time to watch her the whole way,” Manik immediately rejects that plan, but I can see that none of the gathered look disappointed, so it's likely that they never expected us to be able to go through with that option.

 

“Then w’ll do wit’ ‘er as we ken,” the eldest said firmly, and the other representatives nodded. I felt a spark of regret because they would most likely kill the woman, but I shrugged it off. It wasn’t like they had any other options. They’d tried us, but we couldn’t take her with us, and while they could wait for another priest, the woman could escape in the time they waited. I could tell the from what had happened, they probably didn’t see visitors often. “Thank ye’ for helpin’.”

 

Manik nodded in reply, and after I swallowed down the last of my tea, we left. A couple of the children followed behind us to the edge of town, but most of them stayed behind in the inn - discussing what they were going to do if they kept talking about the same things they were talking about when Ieft.

 

We reached Chukan Island Ferry as I started to yawn, and after a shared look, Manik and I both started setting up our tent in clearing a little ways off the path. After the town at Luse’s fork, we weren’t really eager to be around other people at the moment. The air inside my tent is deadly silent, and after a while of staring at the light shifting into the tent, I exited it and went over to lie next to Jaya and Jigme.

 

“You tired at staring at the same patterns of fabric over and over?” I tilted my head slightly, my eyes still closed. There was a sigh before someone settled next to me, leaning against Jaya. “I’m glad you like those robes.”

 

“If I remember my mother’s lessons correctly, giving someone a gift with representations of all four elements is a sign of respect,” I murmured. The sun is warm on my face as I yawn and shift slightly so that I’m leaning on Ryung’s shoulder. “It was for Shalim, wasn’t it?”

 

Ryung stiffens,but he can’t move away without leaving me to fall. I yawn again. “I don’t mind, you know . . . I know you miss him . . . but -”

 

I break off into another yawn. “But you could tell me. So, did you figure out if Hei Jin got my prayers?”

 

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Hei Jin, when I asked her said that she had received your prayers, but she hadn’t realized that they were prayers to herself because she was so used to dealing with my excess prayers.”

 

“Oh, I forgot to tell you . . .“ I pause to yawn. “Manik - he doesn’t remember Avani.”

 

“What?”

 

“He doesn’t remember Avani. Or rather, he doesn’t remember her as a human. He thinks she was just my meerkat rabbit who ran away.”

 

“That’s not good,” he murmured as I yawned again and he glanced down at me. I felt him sigh, then he pulled my sideways so that my head was cushioned on his lap and I was laying down rather than merely leaning against him and Jaya. “Sleep. Avani is safe. She asked me to tell you that she was fine.”

 

His fingers threaded through my hair, and I sighed as I faded into sleep.

 

I awoke to find myself in my tent once again. There was something next to me again, and I glance through the note on top of it first.

 

_ This set of clothes was one of a pair given to Shalim and I by Agni. We never wore them much, and I expect that you will need them on the Islands. Your priest friend already has a set of clothes suitable to get him through the more prominent areas, and when you need it, I can gift Avani her own set. _

 

I set the note to the side and unfold the clothes. There was a dark red stiff collar attached to a shirt that is almost the exact color of dried blood on top. Beneath that, there was a pair of breached that would end just below my knees, and finally there was a pair of classic Fire Island boots with pointed toes. I smiled slightly as I tucked away the clothes into the saddle bag with the rest of my clothes. We would reach a town with ships good enough to get us to the Fire Islands the next, and we would need the clothes.

 

At this point, I would like to say that no, I still don’t know what was happening with my sleep. Sometimes I woke up tired, and sometimes I didn’t . . . though now that I think of it, I always seemed to sleep better when Ryung visited me . . .

 

“You’re looking lively today,” Manik noted as I came out of the tent, and I nodded as him as he served me a bowl of the rice he ad cooking over our fire. I glance over at Jaya, Jigme, and Kala - Manik’s ostrich horse - who were all grazing on the grass and shrubs.

 

“Thanks,” I said with a sigh, after I finished off the rice. “So, how are you planning to get us to the Fire Islands from Luse’s mouth?”

 

“Well,” Manik said, drawing the sound out uncertainly. “There are always boats going to and from places, right?”

 

I stared at him for a moment before I buried my face in my hands. “You don’t know anything. I should have asked you that before.”

 

“Hey, don’t blame yourself,” Manik said, patting my back. “I mean I know you told me not to worry about Avani, but you were obviously worried when she ran away.”

 

“You know nothing about ships,” I groaned. “It should have been obvious, and I should have come up with a plan - but seriously? Your plan was to just look for a ship going to the Fire Islands? You do know that most ships don’t take passengers, right?”

 

“Yes, I knew that,” Manik replied as we start to break camp. “Everyone knows that. But surely there are some passenger ships -”

 

“You make it sound like we’re going to be getting a free ride there,” I interrupt. “And I can tell you right now, without a doubt, that is not going to happen. No, the best deal we’re going to get is if I meet one of my mother’s old friends or one of my father’s friends . . . I might be able to swing us one of the simpler jobs, but we sure as Tui don’t have the money to be accepted as a passenger - at least not if you plan on making that money you have last.”

 

“How long  would this take?” Manik asked dubiously. “We can’t wait around forever you know.”

 

“Well, you’d have been waiting around forever if you’d have tried to get onto one of the passenger boats. They like to get all of their customer scheduled in far in advance, so anything you go us would take at least a week,” I reply. “Now, let’s see, I think I remember Niyakedo said something about coming this way . . .“

 

Manik didn’t argue much with me after that, just grunted and finished strapping the last pask to Jigme’s saddle as I strained my mind to think of any of my parent’s friends who might be around here who would help me get a job.

  
And that’s all for today children. I hope that met your expectations.


	11. Arrangements

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's my next chapter, a good hundred words longer than normal. I hope you enjoy it!

Oh, hello again. Here for more of the story? Alright.

 

I was still muttering to myself about my plans when we got to the town at the mouth of Luse, and I immediately started looking around for anyone I knew. Truthfully, I could have easily gotten myself a job on a ship, but without an adult’s help, there was no way I could swing landing Manik a job because he was so inexperienced. It was nice to be in more familiar surroundings once again. I’d never been to this town before - most of my experience with ships had been in Chameleon Bay and in the Shi Ocean, but ships were the same all around the Earth Kingdoms, and the people who ran them almost as similar.

 

It was easy to fall into talking with cadence of a trader as I asked around to see if there were any ship headed for the Fire Islands that needed an extra hand or two. I glanced back at Manik a couple of times to find him staring at me with a slight smile. I didn’t ask him what it meant, and he didn’t tell me. Then I spotted a familiar tattoo on an arm in the crowd if front of me and I called out.

 

“Niyakedo! Niyakedo!” At first, I thought that the woman hadn’t heard me, and I was about to call again when she turned and glanced around herself. I waved at her, and since I was elevated above the crowd by Jaya, she spotted me quickly and waved back. I pointed at a side street that looked to be emptier, and she nodded. We fought our way through the crowd to the street, Manik following in the wake of disturbance I left, and as soon as I was out of the push and tug of the crowd, and swung myself off Jaya and waited the couple of seconds until Niyakedo had emerged from the crowd before I threw myself at her.

 

“Spiritling!” she laughed, grabbing me and lifting me into the air. “It’s been too long! How are you?”

 

I should probably tell you lot who she is now. She was part of the crew of the ship that my father was on when my mother met him. She’d hit it off quite well with my mother, always congratulating her on catching the uncatchable Sesi. Not that Niyakedo would have tried for my father, she was the one who had taken him under wing when he first left the South Pole. She’d become something of an aunt to me, and it was always nice to see her, even with her moaning about her unmarried state as she did sometimes.

 

She always had a nice word and a smile for me, and she’d even adopted my mother’s nickname for me. She also had this odd tattoo of the sun - at either sunup or sundown depending on how you looked at it, but meant to be of sunup because she was one of Ryung’s blessed - on her bicep, which I had recognised her by.

 

“It’s been six months!” I replied, smiling as she set me down. “I’m fine. How are you? You find that husband you were looking for yet?”

 

“Perhaps,” she said, looking thoughtful. “I’ve got my eye on this one man - he’s got the handsomest face, and a cute - but you don’t want to know about that, I can see you blushing. So why are you here, spiritling? And who’s your new friend? Did Avani leave?”

 

“This is Manik,” I said, gesturing to the priest behind me. “Avani, I’ll tell you what happened to her later. And I’m here because -”  _ No way to dance around it, she’s Earth Kingdom and she’ll know what I mean - _ “You know I’m Shalim’s blessed. It seems, I’m his chosen as well.”   
  


The perpetual grin I had never seen leaver her face crumbled, and Niyakedo dropped to her knees in front of me. “Oh, spiritling -”

 

She put her hands on my shoulders - “Spiritling, I would have never wished this for you.”

 

“I know,” I told her gently. “I know.”

 

She searched my eyes, and I stared back earnestly, absently noting that her eyes were the same golden shade as Ryung’s had been last night. Then she nodded and stepped back. “Alright. Alright, then. What do you need?”

 

“We need to get to Honoiro Island. It’s the farthest west I can think of, and Shalim was about to go get the sun when he was killed,” I explained, thankful that she wasn’t asking where my mother was. Manik remained as silent as he had been so far.

 

“Honoiro, hmm?” she said thoughtfully. “I’ll see what I can do. You remember how to find inns in towns like this?”

 

I nodded. “Good. Meet me at the Broken Arms, in . . . sleep there, I meet you when you get up.”

 

“Alright,” I nodded at her. “See you then.”

 

She flashed me her smile before diving back into the crowd.

 

“Who was that?” Manik asked as I turned back to Jaya and mounted.

 

“That was Niyakedo, blessed of Shalim. She’s practically my aunt, and she’s very good at her job.”

 

“And her job is?”

 

“She’s a navigator, a good one. She should be able to get us onto a ship tomorrow morning as a cabin boy,” I said, then eyed Manik and added under my breath, “or a swab.”

 

“Come on,” I said in a normal tone as I started to push my way back into the crowd.

 

We found the Broken Arms easily enough, and got a room for the night from a nice, if rushed man about Manik’s age. I grabbed all my saddle bags from Jaya, and pulled all of Avani’s things and the tent off of Jigme before I let the stable boy lead them away. Then Manik and I went inside, had a small meal of pot pies in the dining area before we climbed up to the room that matched the image on out key. Two beds, luckily, and I fell asleep quickly after I’d slid under the covers in my under things.

 

I dreamed that night, a masterpiece of wild laughter and fear, a thing of light, ever shining light under which nothing can hide and corners turns as I ran through an elaborate labyrinth, both hunter, and hunter of shadows that I could relax in. There were laurel wreaths twined with belvedere, and citron hung at every corner, and all I could do was follow the faint cinnamon smell of geraniums that lingered wherever that shadow that flickered.

 

I woke between one step and the next, my heart pounding and head spinning. The other bed in the room was empty, and after a moment, I pushed myself to my feet and dressed myself once again in the Earth Kingdom robes Ryung had given me. I impulsively held my sleeve to my nose for a moment, and was rewarded with the smell of cinnamon.

 

I yawn and manage to fumble my way out of the room and down to the dining area. After a quick, sleepy search, I manage to spot Niyakedo and Manik sitting together with cups and bowls in front of them. I yawn, and slowly make my way over to the pair of them. I get there in time to Manik laugh for the first time since I met him.

 

“Ilesh,” he called when he saw me. “You didn’t tell me that she was funny!”

 

I blinked at him blankly, then sat down next to him and stared at the table in front of me.  _ Food . . . _

 

“He wouldn’t know,” Niyakedo said, looking amused. “Most of my jokes are a bit too old for him. Besides, I think it’s a bit early to get anything out of him right now.”

 

She called the serving maid over and ordered a cup of green tea and a bowl of rice oat porridge as I stared at the wood grain of the table in fascination. The food was set in front of me soon enough, and I ate it automatically, blinking awake more and more with every bite. I become more cognizant of the blatant flirting between my aunt and Manik, and I don’t know what to make of it. 

 

On one hand, Manik’s probably exactly the kind of person Niyakedo loved to love, and it would probably do Manik some good to get life experience outside of that of being a priest. Considering that his mother was a priest, he probably hadn’t really experienced much other than being a priest. On the other hand, Niyakedo was older than my father, and Manik probably didn’t have much more than six summers on me, about the same difference between my father and Niyakedo. I decide to put it out of my mind as I finish my mug of tea and set it down to be swept away by one of the serving maids.

 

“You done, spiritling?” Niyakedo asks me, her characteristic grin once again back on her face.

 

“Yeah,” I nodded, turning to face her. “So, what do you have planned?”

 

“Well, I got you two onto my ship. It’s the fastest journey I could get you without getting you onto one of those passenger ships that will take you straight to any Island you want to go.”

 

“And what jobs do we have?” I asked with a raised brow.

 

“Well, I was able to swing you as a sailor,” Niyakedo said, “Pretty boy here gets to be my personal cabin boy!”

 

I burst out laughing, and Manik glanced between the two of us suspiciously. “What job did she get me?”

 

“You’re a cabin boy,” I managed to gasp between bursts of laughter. “That means that you’re basically her servant!”

 

“What?”

 

I couldn’t stop laughing, the look on Manik’s face was too hilarious. Eventually, Niyakedo took pity on him and explained that she really didn’t need a cabin boy, she was self sufficient enough to get around to everything she needed to do - except for cooking - on her own. The job was just an excuse to get him on board. “I definitely couldn’t have gotten you a job as a sailor - you’d have been killed in a day!”

 

“So, what type of things are you trading this time?” I asked her.

 

“Oh, you know, bundles of linen cotton and tapestries,” she replied as we got up. “What are you going to do with your ostrich camels?”

 

I grimace as we climb the stairs to the room. I’d forgotten that I wouldn’t be able to take Jaya and Jigme with me. “I’ll turn them loose. They know enough to keep themselves well fed, especially around here, and they’ll keep away from humans they don’t know without us there. Manik, what are you going to do about Kala?”

 

“I’ll place her with the local temple of course,” Manik said easily. We grabbed our bags, and left the room.

  
And that’s all for today. See you tomorrow children!


	12. To the Ship

Yes, yes, hello. Come on in. Hey - no hitting! Settle down. Alright, where were we? Alright . . .

 

After we left the room, the keys were handed back to the innkeeper at the door, and we left to get Jaya, Jigme, and Kala. Niyakedo told me where to go to get onto the ship, then left with Manik to guide him to the local temple of Kun. I took Jaya and Jigme to the edge of town and rid them of their saddles and bridles. I’d only done this a couple times before, and each time it was only as training, so Jaya was understandably confused, but Jigme was more familiar with the gesture, having experienced it several times before with Aunt Tenjal back when she’d been off traveling on ships.

 

I glanced back at the pair of them several times as I walked back to the town, and while Jaya was looking at me confused the first couple of times I looked back, she eventually settled down, no doubt thinking it was just another of those times that I left her out by herself as training. I ruthlessly suppressed the thought that I would probably never see her again. I couldn’t stop the tears from leaking though. Jaya would live longer than me. Avani would probably come here to find them . . . I stopped that train of thought as I neared the place Niyakedo had told me to meet her at. I paused for a moment to dry my tears before I continued on.

 

“Hey, spiritling,” Niyakedo said as I neared her and Manik. “You good to go?”

 

“I just need to put my things away somewhere,” I replied, managing to keep my breathing fairly steady.

 

“Good,” she said, and turned to walk towards the ship. I glance at it, but there doesn’t really seem to be anything very special about it. We climbed up with the fore gang plank, the aft gangplank occupied with people shoulding and hauling bales of linen cotton, bags of seeds, and barrels of what are likely lemon limes and alcohol. I was understandably confused when Niyakedo lead us to a rather spacious cabin, and she laughed when she caught my glance. “I asked the captain if you could room with me, and she shrugged and said that if I wanted to give the sailors more space, I was welcome to. You can put your things in that closet over there, spiritling, and that closet for you Manik.”

 

I put my things in the closet that Niyakedo had indicated and glance over at Niyakedo. “Who’s got my orders?”

 

“Hm? Oh, Hiatsui does. He’ll be up on the deck shouting orders at anyone who looks even remotely close to being a crew member. Don’t worry, he’s really just a big cuddly cat owl.”

 

“A cat owl?” I asked with a raised brown as I went to the door. Niyakedo simply waved me off with a smile. It wasn’t hard to find Hiatsui, and he spotted me at around the same time I spotted him.

 

“You!” he said, softer than the yelling he had just been doing. “You that new sailor Niyakedo brought on?”

 

I nodded and he stalked up to me to examine me, making me shift in place uncomfortably.

 

“Hmph, a bit young, but you’ll do I suppose,” he said gruffly. “Alright, go help haul up those barrels. Go!”

 

I quickly ran to do as he said I had no doubt that I’d be sore the next day, but it was nice to do something familiar for once. Everything was on the ship in an hour, and I found myself pushed back into Niyakedo’s cabin to watch the ship’s cast off from shore so I could see how this crew worked. It didn’t take me long to get a feel for the rhythm of the crew, and so I was out there helping pull lines and tie them down. The sun did not set, but the dinner bell rang eventually, and I followed the rest of the crew down to the mess hall.

 

I drifted over to where Niyakedo was sitting with Manik and Hiatsui. Niyakedo was totally oblivious to Manik now, a sharp contrast to this morning, where she’d flirted with him constantly. Now, she was flirting intensely and single mindedly with Hiatsui. I grabbed a couple more things off of the plates in the middle of the table as I listened to her with a raised eyebrow before I remembered what she’d said yesterday and I glance over Hiatsui. I was no judge at who was handsome or pretty or anything, but Hiatsu did rather look like a combination of what my aunt had waxed on and on about as being the best features of the men she’d been with.

 

His eyes were the same shade as Ravi’s had been, and his face was shaped about the same. His eyes were shaped like Deepak’s, and he wore his hair in the same way Deepak had. His voice was rather like Tae Soo-Yun’s had been now that he wasn’t yelling, and . . . I think you lot get the point.

 

After a while, she lessened her efforts, seemingly satisfied and started actually talking with Manik and me. After a couple of minutes, when I was just picking at the specks of oat rice left on my plate, she caught my eye and nodded to the deck. I nodded, and after returning my plate to the galley, I followed her up to the deck, then to her room. Her smile dropped again as she sat down on the chair next to a table covered in maps and brass instruments.

 

“What’s wrong spiritling? What happened to Avani? She wouldn’t have left you alone if she could help it at all,” Niyakedo asked in concern.

 

“That’s the thing,” I sighed as I sat down on the the floor and pulled my knees up to my chest. “She was kidnapped - I think by the same person who killed Shalim. And Shalim’s revival isn’t normal either.”

 

“What do you mean the revival isn’t normal?” Niyakedo asked.

 

“I’m too strong . . . I’m not supposed to know things that only Shalim could have known until the revival ceremony, but his self collected on me earlier. There’s already been a point where I was more him than I was myself,” I said despondently.

 

“And what about Avani? Do you know where she is?” Niyakedo prompted gently.

 

“Ryung told me she’s on Nikko Island,” I replied, and Niyakedo’s hand drifted up to her tattoo for a moment before she turned to the maps that covered the desk and started to rummage through them, looking for something and pushing a couple to the side.

 

“Nikko Island right?” Niyakedo asked, and I nodded. She pursed her lips and traced something on the paper she was looking at. “Alright, we’ll be there for in a four or five days. Now . . . where’s your mother.”

 

“Avani said that she went looking for my father.”

 

“And yet you sound uncertain.”

 

“I thought that she’d just left me without a thought for days,” I said, feeling drained. “I didn’t find out that she went looking for my father until days later. It way have been just because of an understanding - I hit my head when Shalim died, but . . .”

 

“It feels hard to trust her after that?” Niyakedo asked, a wry smile on her lips as she tidied up the maps on the desk. “Well, get over it. She’s your mother, and even if you go through this in the end, she’ll always be influencing you. You won’t forget her. Besides, she left you in Avani’s care didn’t she?”

 

“She did,” I replied.

 

“There you go,” Niyakedo said practically as she stood.

 

“There’s something else,” I said, and Niyakedo turns back to me patiently. “Avani - Manik knew her. He was with us for two days before she was kidnapped. But when I asked him why he’d rushed me away instead of letting me look for Avani. He said that I told him that she would come back on her own. He didn’t even remember that she was human, he thought that she was my meerkat rabbit.”

 

“His memory was manipulated?” Niyakedo asked.

 

“I think so.”

 

“That’s bad. If whoever it was that took your friend was able to mess with the mind of a priest - you’ll have to excuse me,” Niyakedo said, going to the door. “I need to talk with Hiatsui. That was dinner for the crew, so you can go to sleep now. Your hammock is in that closet I told you to put your stuff in - just tie it to the rafters.”

 

Then she left, opening the door and slamming it shut behind her. I watched the closed door for a moment, then turned to the cabinet I had put all of my things in. I had to dig past the saddles, the bound tent, and the saddle bags before I found the hammock. It was a piece of fabric that could be hung by ropes extending from the top and bottom with another piece of cloth to be used as a sheet and a straw stuffed sack for a pillow, and I glance up at the rafters for a moment before I glance over the the chairs by the table.

 

Niyakedo’s fancier chair was not one I would dare to stand on, but the sturdy wooden chair across from it was rough enough that a little bit of birt could be easily brushed off. I carefully drag the chair over to the space in front of the closet with my things, and manage to tie my hammock to the ceiling after I stood on the chair. I put the chair back into place. Then I pulled off my over robes, folded them neatly, set the on top of my other things in the cabinet, and got into the hammock carefully. I spread the blanket over my legs, put the pillow under my head and turned to the side.

  
And that’s it for today children, see you tomorrow!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter, hope you like it!


	13. Lady of Dreams

Yes, you rascals, I can hear you! Alright, where was I yesterday? The ship? First day? Going to sleep? Alright. 

 

So, I dreamed. At first it was the same dream I’d had the day before - one step after the other. My eyes were cry, and sometimes I ran into a wall, mistaking it for one further off, but I couldn’t stop to nurse my wounds, I was only one step ahead of my hunter, one step ahead of the chase as I turned ever tightening corners around wreaths. I followed the flickering of shadows in front of me, eyes on the ground until -

 

“What are you doing, you fool?” the old woman hissed at me. She shoved a mask into my hands. “Put this on before she catches you.”

 

I hesitated only for a moment - which was less time than I had - before I pulled the mask over my face without looking at it, and then stumbled as the woman grabbed my arm and dragged my through the crowd - since when was there a crowd here? - of people wearing colorful masks and decorated in feathers - it was like a festival.

 

“Where have you been?” the woman asked after a couple of minutes, slowing down and pulling me over to stand in a line for something. “Your brother’s been despondent, and without your help, it’s been just that much harder for me to my job! The sun hasn’t moved, and people are going mad! Agni is terrified - his people all live along the equator, which makes them just that much more susceptible to the loss of night and - what’s wrong?”

 

“Who are you?” I whispered, drawing away from the woman slightly. She turned to look at me, and she wasn’t the old woman who gave me the mask - the one I was sure had grabbed my arm. She was young, and she looked like my mother. “Where am I?”

 

“Shalim?” the woman asked, and I fliched. “Shalim, what’s wrong? You know me.”

 

“No, I don’t,” I relied, shaking my head as I backed away. I glanced around, and there were people looking at me and whispering -  _ Did she call him Shalim? Why’s he wearing a blank mask? Why is he here? _ I fled. I ran past everyone - pushed my way past if I had to until I stumbled out of the edge of the crowd and into a clearing only just lit by the lanterns behind me. There was a dark forest in front of me, and after glancing back at the festival behind me, I started forwards towards the trees. 

 

A hand clamped on my shoulder and dragged me around so that I was facing the woman who had talked as if I was Shalim earlier.

 

“Do you want to get killed? Because that’s what will happen if you go there,” she hissed, and suddenly I could see a strong resemblance to the old woman I’d seen earlier.

 

“I’m not Shalim,” I replied hysterically. “I don’t know who you are, I don’t know where I am, some old woman just dragged me out of a dream where I was being hunter, and then you started asking me questions - and no! I don’t want to die! But if I don’t then the world might dissolve back into the chaos it came from! But half the time, all I can think of is that I’m leaving everyone behind! Avani’s been kidnapped, and it’ll be a week before I can save her! Added to that, I might die without any outside intervention even if I don’t go through with the plan to bring Shalim back because something about me is enough to attract the pieces of his spirit even though there haven’t been any preparations! He’s a god! I’m human, god’s can’t be human!”

 

The woman examined me for a moment with  _ eyes as green as grass (they look so much like my mother’s) _ before she shook her head. “Do you - no, you don’t know me.”

 

She looked sad, and infinitely exhausted for a moment before she extended a hand to me. “Will you trust me? I can take you somewhere else to talk?”

 

I glanced at her face to see if she was lying, but to be honest, I didn’t really care at that point. I felt drained, emotionally exhausted by my admittedly short outburst, and I couldn’t help feel faintly ashamed that I’d poured all of my emotions out to a stranger who really did seem to have been trying to help me. I extended my hand, and she covered the last couple of inches to grab my wrist. She glanced at me with a question in her eyes, and I nodded.

 

Suddenly, we were somewhere else, and she quickly released my wrist. I glanced around the room that we were in as she moved in a practiced manner, pulling things out of jars and sprinkling them into two cups in front of her. Then she picked up a kettle that had been hanging over a fire and poured it just so into the two cups before picking them up and walking back over to me.

 

“Here, drink this,” she said quietly, offering one of the cups to me. I accepted it from her and breathed in the vaguely familiar smell. “If should help you calm down.”

 

She hesitated for a moment before reaching forward and using her sleeve to wipe tears off my face. I started slightly, a hand coming up to my face as she turned away to sip from her cup. I hadn’t realized that I was crying. I slowly drank from the cup, sobbs emerging, but by the time I was finished, they’d quieted down to hiccups, and my tears had dried. The woman wordlessly took the cup and went back to the kettle to refill it. When she came back, she guided me over to a wooden chair that looks out at a clearing in a forest, and sat down on another chair next to me.

 

“So, you’re not Shalim?”

 

“No.” My voice came out small and broken.

 

“You don’t know who I am,” the woman said meditatively, bringing the cup to her lips. “I’m Chuangmu.”

 

“Mother of the Bedroom,” I whisper. I take a sip of my tea. “Dream Lady. I’m Ilesh. Shalim’s blessed. His chosen. Nice to meet you.”

 

“I see what you mean about -” Chuangmu waved a hand vaguely as I glaned at her. “If you’re still human, then you can’t have very much of him, but there was something about you . . . I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s fine,” I said, then gave a little broken laugh. “This is a better dream than the one you pulled me out of. I probably needed to cry.”

 

There was a moment of silence as I lifted my cup of tea back to my lips.

 

“The avatar is looking for you, you know. The liang ge jingshen are spread out all over the world, but none of them have found you yet, and the avatar keeps asking if I’ve seen you.”

 

“The avatar.” I take a sip of my tea. “Who’s the avatar now?”

 

“Ulva of the Northern Water Tribe. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

 

“The avatar doesn’t really come to the Si Wong Desert much. If they do a good job, we don’t usually know who they are.”   
  
“Reasonable. Still, whoever’s hiding you is doing a very good job.“

 

“Ryung’s the one hiding me. He’s been protecting me, I think since Shalim died. He paid for a bunch of books from Wan Shi Tong before my friend and I got there, and he’s helped us several times when priests didn’t believe us.”

 

“Ryung hid you? That . . . probably explains why he’s despondent. You may not be his brother, but that certainly doesn’t stop you from feeling like Shalim. Not only is he feeling that and having to wait for his brother, but he has to actively help you be less like his brother. Oh. Someone is trying to wake you now.”

 

“I should go then,” I replied, setting my tea down on the floor next to me. I stood and turned to bow to Chuangmu. She smiled at me, and waved a hand.

 

“Go now, with my blessing.”   
  


I blink, and when my eyes open again, someone was shaking me. “Come on Ilesh, breakfast.”

 

“Alright, Niyakedo,” I yawned. “I’m awake.”

 

“Good,” my aunt said. “Now you need to get up. No slacking!”

 

“Yes, yes, I know,” I said sleepily. My mind drifted to my dream. “I just have to keep going.”

 

Niyakedo gave me an odd look. “Are you alright?”

 

“I’m fine,” I replied as I pulled myself us and slipped off of the hammock. “I just had a weird dream is all.”

 

“Good. Come on, breakfast is your favorite today!”

 

“Coal roasted cholla desert berry mesquitato cakes?” I ask dryly as I open the closet with my things and pull out the earth style robes Ryung gave me.

 

“No . . . blue raspberry flatcakes!”

 

“That’s your favorite, not mine.”

 

“No, I like apple orange tarts.”

 

“And does Hiatsui, by any chance, happen to like apple orange tarts?”

 

“Oh-ho,” Niyakedo said, sending me a sly smile as we stepped out onto the desk. “So you noticed did you?”

 

“Yes,” I deadpanned. “I noticed that he looks rather like a combination of what you allways mooned over in your past boyfriends. How could I not notice when you dropped Manik like a rock the moment we got onto the ship?”

 

“You’re no fun, spiritling,” Niyakedo sighed as she held open the door to the mess hall open for me.

 

“Oh, I know,” I replied. “And I’m going to stay that way until you stop finding it fun to mess with me -”

 

“Which is never. But come on, spiritling, even you have to admit he’s handsome,” Niyakedo practically whined.

 

“I’ll admit that the day I’ll admit I like girls, which is never at this rate,” I reply, and I glanced up at Hiatsui behind her. Niyakedo lost her grin for a moment at the reminder of what I was going to do, but before she could say anything, I sat down and greeted Manik.

  
And that’s all for today. Run along to your parents kids.


	14. Don't You Know the Avatar?

Yes, yes, I can tell you the story now.

 

One and a half days on the ship before we reached Tsuribari Island was long enough to prove myself, and when I reported to Hiatsui after everything had been unloaded, he waved me off to do whatever I wanted in the six hours we had before we would be heading out again. Manik, who had spent his time following Niyakedo around like a harried puppy, said that he was going to find the local temple of Kun, and Niyakedo had abandoned me to go ogle the maps and any men she might find. The both of them left in their opposite directions, leaving me with Hiatsui and the pile of unloaded cargo.

 

Hiatsui glanced at me then waved a hand dismissively. “Shoo. I’ve got older sailors lingering around watching this. You’re young, you should go and enjoy yourself.”

 

I glanced around, noting the sailors casually hanging about, then I turned on my heel and wandered off towards the market. I had a couple of strings of copper coins and one string of silver, nothing much but enough to buy a few trinkets. The market wasn’t very crowded, and most of the stalls were selling clothing - taking advantage of the fashion gap between the Earth Kingdoms and the Fire Islands. I was just wandering down a street mainly filled with temples when a hand clamped down on my shoulder and pulled me off between two temples.

 

“Found you,” a female voice said in satisfaction, and I glanced back to see a woman dressed in the vibrant blues favored by the Water Tribes. “Miyuki! Pema! I found him!”

 

I glanced over at the people the woman was calling over, then twisted out of her grip. “Who are you?”

 

I wrinkled my nose. This was the third time in as many days that a stranger had grabbed me, and I wasn’t liking the trend. The woman glanced down at me with a surprised look on her face as the two people she’d singled out - another female member of the Water Tribes and a female Air Nomad (I stared at her for a moment. She was so different for the airbenders I knew.) - come up behind her. “You don’t know who I am?”

 

I glanced over her again, and after a moment I remembered that Chuangmu had told me something about the avatar - that she currently was a female from the Northern Water Tribe. I glanced at her clothes, and while she did have purple, which was more or a color used by the North Water Tribes than by the Southern ones according to my father, her friend was dressed much in the same way. Either way, I decided not to chance it, and I shrugged. “Try asking before you assume.”

 

“I’m the avatar!”

 

“And if that’s the way you act, you’re a might presumptuous one too!” The avatar and her friends - perhaps her liang ge jingshen - both look rather shocked again before the Air Nomad covered her mouth with one of her sleeves and laughed.

 

“You have to admit, he’s right Ulva. In fact, considering how pampered you were with us, it was most likely rather time that you came across someone who didn’t know you,” she remarked. The lowered her hand from her mouth and bowed to me. “I am Pema of the Western Air Temple. It’s nice to meet you. If I may ask, what is your name?”

 

“You may ask,” I reply, and bow to her in return. Pema laughed again at my reply, and she was smiling when I straightened up.

 

“Well then, what is your name?”

 

“I’m Ilesh of the Racoon Rabbit Ramlah, son of Sesi of the Southern Water Tribes and Sengemo of the Racoon Rabbit Ramlah. It’s nice to meet you as well.”

 

“These are my friends, Ulva and Miyuki of the Northern Water Tribe,” Pema said, waving a hand first to the avatar, then to the other Water Tribe girl. The avatar still looked rather bewildered, but Miyuki had been watching with eyes as sharp as ice, and she bowed slightly as she was introduced.

 

“Delighted to meet you,” she said. “Do you know why we were looking for you?”

 

“I should hope so,” I sighed. Now that greetings were over, I didn’t have as much room to maneuver. “If you’re here about Ryung, I don’t need another person egging me on. I’m already leaving quite enough people behind when I go, I don’t need to add more to that score.”

 

“You’re going to save the world!” the avatar objected.

 

“And I’m going to die in the process,” I replied, my lips twisting bitterly. “Funny how that works, isn’ it? Now if you’re just going to bug me, I have better things to do.”

 

The avatar looked ready to protest again, and I wondered for a moment just what is was about her that made it so hard for her to understand my situation. Then as her friends forcibly turned her around and talked, I reconsidered.

 

_ If the Avatar was as bitter as I am, they would have probably given up on the world years ago, _ I thought with a wry twist to my lips. I glance up as Miyuki and Pema allow the avatar to turn around again.

 

“D-do you have transportation?” the avatar asked, trying not to sound angry, and failing.

 

“No, I’m fine,” I replied calmly.

 

“Well, if you need,” the avatar cleared her throat. She half sounded like she was being tortured as continued the very obviously rehearsed speech. “If you need help, we will be contacting all of the temples from here to the far side of Honoiro. Just go to one, and ask.”

 

Both of her companions looked pained, but they quickly hid it as she turned around and sent them a long suffering look. Pema stepped forwards, raised her hands slightly, and twisted them firmly. A small pendant formed seemingly out of nothing, but I’d seen that technique. Avani had done it, my mother had done it- it was a common enough earthbending technique - and I glanced at the image that she’d put into the token.

 

The images, too, are rather common - a picture of of the siblings Lord Makani and Lady Era on one side, and Lady Kun on the other side. The combination wasn’t too odd considering Era’s relationship with Kun, the only truly odd things about it was that Makani had been included, a fact that could easily be explained away by how close Era and Makani were.

 

“What’s this for?” I asked as I tucked it into my money pouch.

 

“It’s my mark,” Pema replied, stepping back. “It should allow access to the help without any trouble.”

 

“Thank you,” I replied gently, and Pema nodded at me, then turned to leave. That was an Air Nomad custom. They believed that there was no such thing as goodbye because you would always see someone again, if not in this life, then in the next. I stared after her, absently nodding farewell to the avatar and Miyuki in response to their goodbyes, and wondered . . .

 

She knows that I am going to become a spirit - I am going to become one of the greater spirits. And yet, she did not say goodbye. Was that optimism or tradition.

 

It was a closed off corner, so there had been no one to overhear us, and I figured it could shelter me for a little while longer.’

 

“Hey, Ilesh. What are you doing out here? Were you waiting for me?”

 

I looked up to see Manik.

 

“Oh. Is this Kun’s temple?” I asked, feeling detached.

 

“Yeah,” Manik said, walking closer to me. I stared at him for a moment. He knew that I was going to die soon, he’d known it from the day we met, and yet he still chose to befriend me. He still chose to care about me. “Hey. Are you feeling alright?”

 

“Why did you become friends with me? You knew I was going to die, so . . . why?”

 

“Right to the hard questions it is then,” Manik mumbled, dropping down to sit casually in front of me. “You want to sit?”

 

I sat, and watched him think. “Well, first of all, you’re thinking about this all wrong. You’re thinking how could we, knowing what we know, but the truth is that humans as a whole aren’t very good at looking at the future. Oh, we can do it, we can do something, and tell ourselves that it’ll be good in the long run, but give us a person, someone who is whole and real, and very much here, and we tend to forget that they’re going to die on us.”

 

“It’s less of a  _ how could we _ , than a  _ how couldn’t we _ . You’re there, and what’s more, you’re lonely. People don’t like others to be lonely if they aren’t causing it. It reminds them of just how easily it could have been them that was lonely. So, we go to you and try to help. We might not be able to, but damned if we don’t try.” Manik paused, and glanced at me. “We can’t help but care, if that make sense. Now, will you tell me what cause this?”

 

“I met the avatar,” I say emotionlessly.

 

“And?” Manik prompted gently, turning  to stare at the sky again.

 

“Her companion was an Air Nomad. They don’t do goodbyes because they believe that eventually, everyone will meet again.”

 

“So you wondered what that would mean if the world ended?” Manik asked, and his assumption startled a laugh out of me.

 

“Nothing quite that dramatic,” I said. “I just wondered if she omitted it out of optimism or tradition. She was a liang ge jingshen, so I’m sure that she’s spent enough time around the other nations to get a feel for what’s proper.”

 

“So that’s how your thoughts went,” Manik said. “Well, come on. It’s almost time to cast off.”

 

“And so it is,” I murmured, glancing up at the sun. “You know the way back? I wasn’t really paying attention as I walked.”

 

“Yes, I know the directions,” Manik sighed dramatically. “Come on.”

 

Niyakedo waved at us as we approached the ship, and the last of the sailors arrived about ten minutes after we had. We cast off, and I watched the shoreline retreat rapidly. Somewhere on that island, beyond the tents and the docks I could see, there was the avatar.

 

“Stop staring mysteriously into the distance, Ilesh!” Hiatsui yelled. “Inari, give the a sailor an inch, and he’ll take a mile!”

  
And that’s all for today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know perfectly well what I said Pema was, there's no mistake with her. Hope you like this chapter!


	15. Bad Hair and Prayer

Come on out. Where was I? Existential crisis? Alright.

 

I sighed as I stared over the side and down into the water below. My reflection was a dark shape sticking out from the even darker shadow of the ship. I didn’t look to the side when another silhouette ghosted up to join me.

 

“What are you thinking about?” Manik asked me.

 

“We’ll be at Nikko Island when we wake up,” I noted, shifting slightly to brace myself more securely against the railing.

 

“Your first time on one of the Fire Islands?”

 

“Yes,” I admit after a moment. “That’s not why though.”

 

“Oh?” Manik asks noncommittally. I saw him glance up at the sun in his reflection before he turned back to me. “Would you like to join me in my prayers to Lady Kun before we go to bed?”

 

“Do you pray to her daily?” I asked absently. “I haven’t see you pray before.”

 

“That’s because I usually prayed off in my tent. I figured you wouldn’t want to be bothered.”

 

“Sure,” I murmured after a moment. “I’ll join you.”

 

“Come on then,” Manik said, drawing me away from the railing. “The others are waiting for us.”

 

I glanced up at the sun, then followed Manik quietly. Tomorrow, we would be approaching Nikko Island. Tomorrow, I could save Avani. Manik led me to the mess hall, which had been cleared. All of the sailors that weren’t on duty were gathered in the room and chatting, but quickly enough, someone noticed Manik, and a hush spread through the crowd. Manik took a deep breath, and with the others, I brought my hands together.

 

Manik led the prayer gently but firmly, beginning with the sailor’s typical prayer to La that we might be granted safe passage through his waters, and a prayer to Tui, his wife, that she might keep her husband calm. He followed it with a prayer to Kun, the spirit he was priest to, that our ship would remain solid and carry us throughout the night and the day beyond. After seeing him harassed and henpecked by Avani, Niyakedo, and myself, it was odd to see him in a position of power. He almost seemed to glow.

 

He finished the prayer off with a soft prayer to Inari, asking for the patience to deal with any problems that came his way. There was a moment of silence after as people silently added their own prayers, before Manik let his hands fall, and stepped back with a smile. The silence lasted for a moment more before it dissolved into murmurs that slowly rose to the roar that they had been before Manik came in. A couple of people came up to thank Manik as he made his way over to me, and he accepted them with a slight bow and some words.

 

“What do you think?” he asked with smile curling his lips when he was finally by my side again.

 

“Being a priest suits you,” I said lightly. “Though I rather think it’s the people you like more than the knowledge.”

 

Manik looked startled as he held the door open for me to slip out, but as the door closed behind him, he laughed breathlessly. “You don’t just see, do you?”

 

That was a part of a saying, I remembered. _You can’t just see things and expect to get by. You have to observe. You have to connect._

 

“Perhaps,” I said, half to myself as I held the door to Niyakedo’s room open for him. The door closed behind me as I walked over to my closet. I set up my hammock and pulled off my over robes. ”Sleep well.”

 

“And you,” Manik replied. I closed my eyes and settled in to wait for sleep.

 

I woke up with a gasp to an empty room and an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. I grab the Earth robes Ryung had given me, then hesitated. We hadn’t been to the Fire Islands before, so I hadn’t worn them yet - I turned apprehensively to the saddle bags in the closet. It took me a moment to dig out the bag I’d put them in, and I eye the red clothes for a moment. I’d been fine with them when I got them - I’d liked them even - so I had no idea why I balked at the idea of wearing them them.

 

After a moment of staring at the clothes laid out on the hammock in front of me, I sighed and pulled off my loose under robes. They wouldn’t work with the tighter style the Fire Islands favored. I quickly pulled on the underthings that had come with the clothes, then the breaches, the shirt, and finally the boots. My hands hesitate over my hair for a moment. Normally, I wore it up under the hood of my robes, and while I hadn’t had any hood, the way I wore my hair normally had been close enough to the normal Earth Kingdom style to pass. Now . . . I hesitated for a moment, my hands going up to my hair. I’d put it up automatically as I got out of bed.

 

Then I sight and undo the green tie and start loosening the braid. There’s a strip of red cloth lying on the hammock - something I hadn’t noticed the first time I’d unfolded the clothes - and when I awkwardly pull my hair up into a top knot, it’s perfect for keeping my hair up. Or rather . . . it would have been perfect had I known how to put my hair into a top knot. No matter how you looked at my hair, it was nothing like the elegant top knots that the people of the Fire Islands sported, not with all of the hair poking out of it that made it look more like a hedgecupine.

 

I felt distinctly grumpy as I stalked out of Niyakedo’s cabin, and I could practically feel my face heating up at I heard the sailors on duty point me out to each other. I walked as quickly as I could without appearing to run. As soon as I was in the mess hall, I practically dived into Niyakedo’s lap. “Help me fix my hair!”

 

“Wha- Spiritling? What did you do to your hair?” my aunt asked, sounding half incredulous, half like she was about to burst out laughing any moment. “Spirits! How did you manage to get it to stick up that way?”

 

“I wasn’t exactly trying to,” I grumbled, pulling back and sitting on the bench more properly as she pushed me away and quickly untied the mess that I called a top knot.

 

“I don’t doubt that,” my aunt laughed as she tucked the tie into her pocket and started smoothing my hair out, trying to get rid of the tangles I had created in my attempts to make a top knot. “I didn’t know that you could _do_ that with hair.”

 

With the tangles out, she promptly pulled my hair up and around itself, and suddenly it was in the neat top knot I’d tried to coax it into earlier. “How’d you do that?”

 

“I’ll show you later,” Niyakedo said, grinning at me as she grabbed a plate and a pair of chopsticks from the pile in the center of the table and passed them to me. “You eat your breakfast now. It’s a big day for you, right? It wouldn’t do to faint because you refused to eat.”

 

And with those words, the nervousness that I had managed to suppress with superficial worry over other people’s opinion of my hair rushed back, and I lost my appetite immediately. But I knew that my aunt was right, whatever spirit had kidnapped Avani, I couldn’t expect to get her back easily.

 

I manage - going very slowly - to eat a whole bowl of rice, with an apple orange as after thought. Then, we were close to shore, and everyone boiled out onto the deck to help toss ropes to shore and to catch more ropes to tie down in return. Soon enough, the gangplank is down. However, before I could go to help unload things, Hiatsui stopped me with a heavy hand on my shoulder.

 

“Niyakedo told me that there was something important that you had to do here,” he said, green eyes staring at me intensely. I nod, and he shook his head.

 

“The things I do for this woman,” he grumbled, then louder, “Alright, then go. Can’t have you worrying that you didn’t do whatever it was properly and not paying attention when a beam swings round. Go do whatever it is you need to do.”

 

“You seem to be telling me that rather a lot,” I noted as I let him push me towards the gangplank.

 

“Well, don’t you go telling anyone about it,” Hiatsui said as I paused for a moment at the top of the gangplank. “Can’t have people thinking that I’m going soft. Especially not for a woman.”

 

“Of course not,” I laughed, then walked down the gangplank. The people at the bottom ignored me, more interested in the bales of linen cotton that were coming down behind me.

 

I quickly got out of their way and pushed my way away from the docks. Once I was out of the crowd, just what I was trying to do hit me. I had a day to search the island. I wanted to giggle hysterically.

 

I fumbled for my purse and quickly pulled it out, ignoring the strangeness of having a green purse when the rest of my clothes were Fire red. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do with the money - hire search parties perhaps? - but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I found the pendant that Pema gave me, and an idea formed.

 

 _If you need help . . ._ drifted through my mind, and as pained as the statement had been, it was a sincere offer. Help. I could use some help in figuring out where I have to go to get to the spirit world, where Avani was likely being held. And the best way to do that is to ask the locals.

 

And that children, is all for today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am now over halfway done! Yay!


	16. Rescue

Yes, I’ll tell you what happened to Avani, you don't need to beg or offer me any food.Yesterday, I’d just told you that I remembered Pema’s pedant.

 

So, I went searching for Agni’s temple. It didn’t take me long, the town was fairly small, and the first person I asked was easily able to point me in the direction of the temple. I approached it hesitantly, not entirely sure what I wanted to ask. After a moment of hesitation, I straightened my back and firmed my resolve. If I couldn’t tell them what I wanted, then perhaps they could tell me what I needed. They were priests, so they had probably seen cases of spirit abduction before, right?

 

I pushed the doors of the - surprisingly unornamented for one of Agni’s - temple, and bowed to the image of Agni on the opposite wall. Once that was done, I glanced around for some way to contact the Fire Sages. The images on the wall moved in the flickering candlelight - dragons and phoenixes taking flight and burning, so it took me a moment to discern the pull string for the bell.

 

“I’m coming!” a female voice called, and I waited patiently until a part of the wall moved, then swung open in time to deposit someone on their behind.

 

“Ow,” the woman groaned, reaching back to rub her backside, then freezing. “Oh!”

 

She scrambled to her feet and quickly straightened her hat before bowing to me. “I am Fire Sage Usha. What do you need help with?”

 

I stared at the girl for a moment in slight bewilderment before I remembered why I came and shook my head. I quickly held out the pendant I’d received, and she stared at it laying in my hand in incomprehension for a bit before her eyes widened in realization, and she took it carefully from me to examine it. She looked over the side with Lady Kun, then the side with Lord Makani and Lady Era. “Oh. This is one of Pema’s.”

 

“Can you tell me where I might access the spirit world?” I asked as I took back the pendant and slipped it into my money pouch once again.

 

“The spirit world? Why do you want to go there?”

 

“My friend . . .”

 

“Spirit kidnapping?” Usha asked sympathetically. “Do you want help? We have a couple of people here who have training in going to the spirit world.”

 

“You do?” I asked, startled. I’d never heard of anyone other than the avatar or the liang ge jingshen going to the spirit world.

 

“Oh, yes,” said Usha enthusiastically. “Nikko is too small for another priest, but we have too many kidnappings for me to be the one who goes into the spirit world. A couple of the men from around here have trained to go into the spirit world and get back those who have been kidnapped.”

 

“. . . I think I’ll be fine on my own,” I said. It wasn’t that I actually thought that. I knew that if I went with someone who actually knew what they were doing, I would probably do better. Without the help, in the realm known for being dangerous to humans . . .But the thought of bringing someone else with me, or following someone else, or even letting someone else do the work of getting Avani back to made me nauseous. “So, the portals?”

 

Usha looked at me sadly. She knew my chances of survival as well as I did. The things was, I didn’t even trust myself. I hadn’t seen Ryung in six days, and it had been nine days since he cleared Shalim from my mind. Memories flashed behind my eyes, distracting me from any tasks I was doing unless I was concentrating only on that task.

 

I pushed the thoughts away as Usha pushed open the door of the temple. I followed Usha through the town and up a trail that went through a forest. After ten minutes on the trail, she pointed me down a smaller, less trodden branch.

 

“There’s a clearing at the end of this path,” she explained solemnly. “Sit there and meditate as well as you can. You’ll get to the spirit would when you’re ready.”

 

“Thank you,” I told her quietly, and she looked at me for a moment before shaking her head.

 

“Thank me when you come back. I won’t have you thank me for helping you kill yourself,” she said before turning and heading back the way we came. Killing myself . . . is an honest description. I shook my head and turned to walk down the side trail that Usha had indicated. There was a clearing at the end of the path, just as she had said, and I settled down. I hadn’t had much success with meditation before - I’d only just started to learn it - but Avani was here. She’d been gone, and I’d missed her.

 

I missed her smiles, her sense of humor, the way she brought out her fans seemingly randomly. I missed her odd way of speaking sometimes, when she was at her most relaxed. I missed the way she knew how to make me focus. More and more throughs spiraled around Avani, and I focused on her, on how I missed her, on the heart stopping fear I felt when I realized she was gone, on the confusion I’d felt when I first met her, on the life she held, and I sunk into myself. Then I seeped outwards, trickle by trickle.

 

At some point, I opened my eyes calmly. Around me were walls, and I blinked at them calmly. Walls did not matter, only Avani. I stood and stepped to the door that was because that was where Avani was. The door opened into a hallways, and I calmly exited the room. The door dissolved into the wall as it shut, but I found that I was not worried.

 

“So. You did come for her after all,” a voice colored with amusement said from behind me. I knew her name even as I turned to face her. It’s odd. I remember wondering if she was even alive, and wondering if she had anything to do with kidnapping Avani. My chest twinged.

 

“Hello Senge,” I murmured as I turned to face the spirit behind me. “So it was you behind this. I had wondered.”

 

“Oh, dear sweet Shalim -” I flinched away from the name, and the sun daisy regarded me with amusement. “Or would you prefer Ilesh?”

 

That name caused an even greater reaction, and Senge laughed, throwing back her head and letting her mane of green hair dip and sway. “Oh, I thought that might get a reaction, but you are so much more responsive  than I had hoped!”

 

“Where is Avani?” I asked, but the question was redundant with the knowledge I had, and Senge clearly knew that from the way she smiled.

 

“Now, now,  _ Shalim _ , why don’t you figure that out yourself? It’s not like you don’t have  _ all _ the time in the world.”

 

Yes, all the time in the world. If I didn’t find her in a month, the world would collapse back into chaos. My mouth twisted. “Nice to know you’re not going to stab me in the back again.”

 

“Stab you in the back?” Senge’s eyes crinkled, but they remained the same, a dead, staring black. “Now, why ever would I do that? The first time was quite enough to provide me with entertainment.”

 

She laughed again as I turned away from her and followed the knowledge of Avani. I followed my knowledge to exactly the fifth door on the left, behind the second on the right, behind the ninth door up. She was splayed out on a floor of hard wood and shackled by ivy that held her there. Her skin was bright red under the light that come indefinitely from above, and she whimpered when I carefully peeled the vines off of her.

 

“Ilesh,” she breathed when the last of the vines were off of her. “Ilesh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

Her voice cracked, as I carefully picked her up, and she was sent into a coughing fit. I couldn’t stop though, I had no idea how long I was safe. I carried Avani down and out through the ninth door, out and left through the second door, and right through the fifth. The first hallway was as empty as the others had been, though I could hear Senge’s laughter whisper tauntingly.

 

The door that I had first come through was still gone, but it was not the room that was important. I closed my eyes, and remembered. Meditation. I was in meditation, and now that I was thinking, I could feel the part of my mind that had continued the mantra on Avani.

 

I felt so tired, and I bowed my head. Avani was my object of concentration, and focused on her as I was, coming out of meditation would be harder than going in. I was lucky though. I was able to come back. For some reason, Senge hadn’t felt fit to kill me, and what ever else she was, she kept a safe house. The mantra fell apart in a swift moment as I sent my thoughts to spiral around, Ryung, the other person they could easily get lost around.

 

I came back to myself with a gasp, and was immediately aware of the heavy weight on my lap. Avani was there, just as I had seen her in the spirit world. Her robes were torn and tattered, and the only places her skin was visible and not bright red were the stips of pale skin where Ivy had held her bound and captive. I found myself even more tired now. In the spirit world, I had not been merely Ilesh, as the memories imbued me with a strength I hadn’t had, but now, where I am only human . . .

 

I slumped backwards and stared into the blue sky above me. I could vaguely hear voices growing closer, but I just couldn’t care. I was so tired . . .

  
And that’s all you get today children. Shoo off to your parents now.


	17. After

I  _ can _ hear you lot. Come out of there. I don’t know how you got in there.

 

Alright. So, I passed out after I brought Avani back. I woke up to the familiar sway of a hammock on a boat.

 

“You know, I rather think that you want to die,” a female voice said. “You went into the spirit world without any help at all - straight into the home of someone you acknowledged was your enemy.”

 

“Chuangmu,” I muttered in recognition as the woman circled me.

 

“You had no one backing you! No one! I was watching you, and you suddenly shifted out of my view! And you didn’t know I was helping you! No back up! None!”

 

“Chuangmu,” I said, but before I could speak again, she rounded on me.

 

“I’m going to make a tracker so I can help you if you get it into your head to go into some dangerous situation again!” she declared. “And you better wear it. In fact, I’m going to put it on that necklace of yours, so you can’t complain about it being too awkward, or too much of a burden.”

 

“Chuangmu, it’s fine,” I said,  sitting upright and throwing my hands up in exasperation. “I’ll wear it!”

 

She eyed me, green clashing with blue before she shook her head and sat down on a wooden chair next to my hammock that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Well then. It you’re fine with support now, then why did you reject it when Usha offered it to you?”

 

“I couldn’t take help then,” I replied, lying back down. “I just - there was something telling me that I couldn’t. I felt sick at the thought of having other people help me.”

 

“You know me, don’t you,” she murmured, leaning forward to stare at me. That was the truth. The feeling was odd. I remembered not remembering her. I remembered not remembering any spirits but the great spirits and the spirits of the desert by name. Last time, I was constantly reminded of the war, it was no surprise that it was the war I would remember. Now, I was reminded of spirits, of the spirituality of things. I remembered Chuangmu, and I remembered meeting her and not knowing her. “Well. You haven’t changed a bit, have you? I would have thought that being human would have changed you, but if anything, you’re more like yourself than you were before.”

 

“I don’t feel like much of anyone these days,” I murmured and glanced away. Her eyes, which had reminded me of my mother’s, now remind me of Lady Kun’s. “How if Avani?”

 

“Avani?” Chuangmu asked, looking genuinely confused for a moment. “Oh, yes. The friend you risked your life for. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that the both of you are on that ship. The friend is resting, and covered is sunburn cures.”

 

“Thank you,” I sighed in relief, deciding not to question how I’d gotten onto the ship. Then I yawn, the tiredness that had lingered throughout the dream swelling again. Chuangmu was watching me again when I opened my eyes.

 

“Go to sleep. Know that whatever you choose to call yourself, you will always have a place with me.”

 

I drifted off to the feeling of a hand stroking across my brow.

 

I woke to the swaying of my hammock once again. I opened my eyes to see the ceiling of Niyakedo’s cabin. I didn’t recognise it for a moment, bathed in light as it was. Then I started upright, looking for Avani. She was in a hammock hanging to my left, sun burns a bright red color covering all of the skin I could see.

I couldn’t help but be relieved despite that. I could see some evidence of the burn having been - at least slightly - soothed with earthbending, and I found myself wondering if Manik had been the one to do that, or if it had been someone else. I could also see and smell the thin sheen of aloe olive gel that seemed to cover her skin.

 

My hand crept to my necklace, as I remembered Chuangmu’s threat - or rather her promise. Sure enough, there’s another bead on my necklace. It feels odd beneath the tips of my fingers - the cool smoothness of porcelain, but only the same weight as a wooden bead of similar size. It was as red as blood, when I lifted my necklace to look at it, with a scattering of small blue stars placed in constellations, and a small blooming iris.

 

It reminded me on her and what she presided over. Dreams were solid and smooth, but as weightless and insubstantial. The stars were for me - a shared secret between us. And the iris was Chuangmu’s favorite flower.

 

“Ilesh,” someone gasped, and I glanced to my right. Niyakedo was looking at me with a sort of wonder in her eye. “You’re awake. Usha said she wasn’t sure if you would -”

 

She cut herself off and eyed me. Then, quietly; “Who are you? You are not my nephew.”

 

I glanced at the open window behind her for a moment as I tried to think of how to reply to that. I was not, exactly Ilesh. I knew too much. I remembered so much - Ilesh could not have even imagined much of what I knew to be fact. At the same time though, I was very much not Shalim. Shalim was a great spirit. He was strong and admired - in comparison, I was so weak. In the end, I gave her much the same answer that I gave Chuangmu. “I’m really not much of anyone these days.”

 

“Not much of anyone?” Niyakedo asked cautiously. Manik abruptly groaned in the chair beside her, making both of us turn to watch him as he mumbled something and tossed his head. “Well then, I suppose you’ll have no problems leaving.”

 

“I can’t,” I said simply, turning back to watch Avani again. “It’s - do you remember what I told you about? How I was too strong? I can’t get out of this body because it is mine. I can’t just unremember things either. I am not the person I was - either of them. And there is nothing else for me to be right now, so I’m not much of anyone.”

 

“Can you help around the ship?” Niyakedo asked practically, making me glance over at her before I nod. “Then you’re a sailor. Could you survive in the desert if I dropped you off without supplies at an oasis?”

 

I nodded. “Then you are of the Remlah tribes. Do you love Avani? Ryung? Then you are that to them, no matter what name you are called.”

 

I regarded Niyakedo curiously for a moment.  “I sometimes think that you would have made a good priest.”

 

“Are you joking? No one wants to have sex with a priest!” Niyakedo exclaimed, sounding mystified.

 

“And then you go and say something like that,” I laughed.

 

“Oh yes, not much of anyone, laugh it up,” Niyakedo grumbled. For a while, there was a comfortable silence between us. “If you aren’t my nephew, and you aren’t Dawn, then you need to be someone. It’s not as if you don’t have anything.”

 

“Ah, yes,” I shook my head. “I could go and confuse everyone, or I could just flinch and bear it. Don’t worry about me.”

 

“I need to worry about someone. Now, go back to sleep. It’s the middle of the night - for us, anyways - I’ll wake you in the morning.”

 

I shook my head and turned in my hammock to face Avani once again. We were close enough that I could reach out and touch the edge of her hammock.

 

“You really do love her, don’t you?” a quiet voice asked.

 

I didn’t need to think to answer. “She’s the solid foundation I built myself on. I define it was love, but I’m quite sure that some would call me dependent - even overly so.”

 

“And Ryung?”

 

“He’s rest. I didn’t know him as Ilesh, but as Shalim, I never didn’t know him. I - I don’t know how to tell you what I feel.”

 

“Broken edges that snap perfectly, in spite of, or even beauce they are broken. A wall between you and the world. Knowing you aren’t perfect, you couldn’t possibly ever do enough to deserve them, and letting them go, only for them to fall back into your arms? You will do anything they ask, even if it hurts them, because you trust them to make and fix their own mistakes?”

 

“Yes,” I hissed out. Yes, that was a perfect description of what I felt. I felt broken. I didn’t fit my own skin anymore, but if I gave Avani or Ryung the chance, they could easily slip past my defences and coax a smile out of me. Ryung - he was broken too, by the loss of his brother and by me, by having the ability to bring his brother back quickly, but knowing that his brother would be gone for good after that. Avani had been broken as long as I knew her, battle work and weary after years of arguments with her parents. And yet I fit with them.

 

As for undeserving? A part of me was, and always would be just a simple desert nomad, indistinguishable from the rest and comfortable with my anonymity. I’d given Avani the resources to leave me time and time again, but each time she only came back the moment I turned my back.

 

“That’s love.”

 

There was another pause.

 

“Is it alright that I’m scared?”

 

“Haven’t you heard? Love is jumping off a cliff and trusting. If you aren’t terrified sometimes, I don’t know what else should scare you.”

 

The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes to the murmuring of voices. My heart leaped at the sound of on familiar voice.

 

“That’s enough, you can’t heal everything in a day. Besides, I’m well enough to move, that means well enough not to need any more healing.”

  
And that’s all for today.


	18. That Sinking Feeling?

So. Yesterday was awkward. You guys ready for some more awkwardness? Too bad.

 

“I know you’re awake,” Avani said after the door had closed.

 

“And what are you going to do about it?” I asked after a moment.

 

“Well, I could strangle you for coming to get me without any help.” I opened my eyes a crack. “But I am rather thankful for that, so it’s hard for me to be truly disapproving. I’ll leave that business to Niyakedo. So I’ll settle for this.”

 

Two hands came down to grip my face and turn it gently so I was looking up into emerald eyes. “Ilesh, remember Bina? Do you remember Prachi? Kavi? Ekta?”

 

“Ah,” I gasped softly in pain. This time, it was a tearing apart. Though it had been too great for a human body to handle, Shalim’s mind had never the less begun to combine with my mind. Last time it felt nice - good, even - as I was released from the weight of another’s feelings.This time, roots had taken hold from both sides, and I found myself feeling precarious, like I could collapse onto myself at any point. A hand soothed over my forehead, and I leaned into eagerly.

 

“And how do you feel now, mister not much of anyone?”

 

It hurt, and yet - “Good,” I slurred. And yet, the weight that I had barely thought of as it was added to piece by piece had lifted. “I feel very good, ‘Vani.”

 

I leaned more into the hand that was sliding through my hair and bringing relief wherever it went. I was a someone once again, wisps of memory disconnected now. I struggle to open my eyes, and I managed to do so just in time to see her relax. “Good. I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to - Well . . .”

 

“Avani,” I sighed as I turned into my pillow. I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. “I didn’t go get you -”

 

I had to stop to yawn. “I didn’t go get you back so you could save me. I went because I’m your friend.”

 

“Sentimental,” Avani giggled, and I smiled faintly before darkness took me.

 

“Hey,” a low voice called, pulling me out of my sleep. I felt much better this time, after the disconnection from my body with Niyakedo, and the tearing of Shalim’s personality from my own with Avani.

 

“I know you’re awake,” Manik said, sounding amused. I heard him lean forward, then a hand brushed over my head.

 

“Is my hair a lucky talisman now or something?” I asked, cracking my eyes open. “Because you’re the second one to do that recently.”   
  


“No, I don’t think that your hair became a lucky talisman,” Manik replied, leaning back into his wooden chair. “We’re all just trying to remind ourselves just why we like you. Touching your hair keeps our hands from strangling you.”

 

“Haha,” I replied sarcastically as I opened my eyes more and sat up. “You’re such a comedian that I’m dying of laughter.”

 

“That would solve one problem,” Manik said cheerfully as he tossed my tunic at me. “We wouldn’t have to stop ourselves from strangling you anymore.”

 

“Pleasure to have been of service,” I replied as I slid off of the hammock and pulled the tunic on. “How long was I out?”

 

“The rest of the day after you rescued you friend, and a full day after that.” He paused and watched me as I pulled my breeches on. “How long was your friend missing? A while, I presume, to have had the time to find a meerkat rabbit and name it after her.”

 

“She was gone for seven or eight days,” I said quietly, after a moment of frozen contemplation.

 

“A week?” Manik asked, sounding bewildered. “You wouldn’t have had the time - I would have met her!”

 

“You did.” The words were hummed, and I half hoped that he hadn’t heard them..

 

“I did,” Manik repeated as I pulled my hair tie out of the pocket of my breeches. “Your meerkat rabbit?”

 

“I’ve never had one,” I confirmed as I tried to pull my hair up into a top knot.

 

“There was no meerkat rabbit,” Manik said slowly. I patted my top knot and made a face at the mess it was in before quickly untying it. “You didn’t correct me.”   
  


“I didn’t know if doing so would hurt you,” I replied as I tried to pull my hair up again. “I’m no priest, and what if there was a trap around the knowledge? I figured that you’d be fine now that I got her back.”

 

“. . . your reasoning is sound,” he admitted, then he grabbed my hands to stop me before I could attempt to  tie my hair up. “Now, let me do your hair. You obviously don’t know how to do it yourself.”

 

“I do know how to put my hair up,” I grumble even as I easily give up my hair tie to Manik. “I’m just not good at it.”

 

“Ilesh, you’re as terrible at it as I am at making cord.”

 

“You can make cord?” I asked, leaning into his hands as he combed his fingers through my hair to get rid of the knots that I’d inadvertently made as I tried to put it up.

 

“I don’t, which is the point,” he pointed out in irritation as he pulled my hair up and made quick work of it with the tie. “There. That should hold you.”

 

“Thanks,” I sighed, and grumbled when Manik slapped my hands before I could touch my hair to check how good of a job he’d done. “So, what time is is?”

 

“It’s around breakfast right now. And don’t your your hair. Touching messes it up.”

 

“Alright, I won’t touchy hair. Can I go get breakfast? I’m hungry.”

 

Manik glanced over me, then sighed. “Sure. Come on.”

 

The sky was dark with clouds when we exited, and Manik shoots a worried glance up at them as he hurried me over to the mess hall. I understood his concern - those clouds are of the ship sinking kind, even though we’re not likely to get hail because we’re in the Fire Islands. I let him hurry me across the deck and past the sailors strapping things down and glancing anxiously up at the sky. The mess hall wasn’t as busy as it should have been during breakfast, but I have no doubt that those who would have normally been here were either strapping the last things down or had lost their appetites to unease and had already eaten their full portion of bland foods.

 

Avani was sitting next to Niyakedo, speaking to her. They both glance up when Manik herded me over to them, and Niyakedo manages to smile at me. “Hey spiritling.”

 

“Niyakedo,” I nodded at her as I sat down and Manik took the seat next to me. “Sorry I abandoned you for a day.”

 

“It’s alright,” Niyakedo said. Then there’s a roll of thunder, and the mess hall goes quiet as everyone glanced up reflexively, as if we could see through the wood of the ceiling and to the sky above. The door to the mess hall opened, and everyone glanced at the sailor in the doorway.

 

“It didn’t hit anything!” he called, and people slowly turned back to talking among themselves, the hum of conversation rising once again.

 

“Just don’t go doing that again, spiritling,” Niyakedo continued as she turned back to me. I nodded in response, and helped myself to some more rice. Avani restarted her talk with Niyakedo. Thunder rolled several more time, but each time, someone came to tell the steadily emptying mess hall that nothing had been hit. Niyakedo left when I was around half way done, telling us that she was going to weather the storm out with Hiatsui, and Avani turned her full attention to eating her meal. When Avani Manik and I left the mess hall, it was just starting to rain, and we all ran for the navigator’s cabin.

 

The lamps were still lit, so we didn’t have to fumble around in the darkness. After Manik barred the door to make sure it wouldn’t open on us because of a particularly strong gust of wind, there was an awkward silence and period where we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Eventually, Avani gravitated over to the closed full of books that most navigators had, and Manik went over to the personal shrine he’d set up on the top shelf of his closet.

 

As for me, I found myself digging through my bags to see what trinkets I had. I found a couple of badly carved toys I’d made when I was small, and hadn’t had the heart to get rid of, a couple of different bags of dried date plumbs, and a bunch of dry fibers that I’d no doubt intended to  make cord with at some point. With nothing else to do, I put back the toys and all but one of the bags of dried date plumbs, then set to work rolling cord.

 

It was Avani who noticed it first, and she called softly to me, “Are the lamps leaning oddly?”

 

I glanced up and frown, because the lamps were leaning oddy, and what’s more, they weren’t swinging back nearly as far as they should have with the waves. Then my eyes widen and I abandon my cord. “Avani, is there anything in your bags that you can’t live without?”

 

Avani shook her head quickly, and I rounded on Manik, throwing him an oil skin drawstring bag from the wall. “Get everything you need for the ritual, and for day to day today packed.”

 

Manik stared at me for a moment in shock. ”Go!”

 

He jumped at my yell, and quickly scrambled to sweep all of the things from his shrine into the bag I threw at him. He slammed his closet open, pulled a pouch out of one of him saddle  bags, and stuffed it into the oilskin bag. I’d been busy tying my knife into its sheath, and Avani had been making sure that our money pouches were securely tied to her belt. I removed to bar and pulled the door open to see sailors standing on the deck.

 

Niyakedo appeared out of nowhere, drenched in rain, and she grabbed my arms. “You can swim right?”

 

I nodded quickly, and she glanced behind me.

 

“Avani? Manik?”

 

“I can swim,” the both answered, and she nodded. She turned momentarily, the let go of one of my arms and dragged me behind her over to Hiatsui.

 

“Are the barrels empty?” Hiatsui nodded, and she turned and dragged me into a hug. “Goodbye spiritling.”

  
And that’s it for today children!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I know this is late! Sorry!


	19. That Was The Ship

Yes, yes, I know yesterday was a cliffhanger, don’t worry! I’ll tell you what happened.

 

My aunt told me goodbye, and I only just managed to stop myself from crying as I turned and let Hiatsui tie me to the barrel that had probably only just been full of the date plum wine that I’d heard was exported sometimes. The ship was listing even more sideways now, and after a glance at my aunt as she helped me climb over the railing, I jumped. I landed in the freezing, salty water with a splash, and Avani and Manik weren’t very far behind me.

 

Now that I was down in the water, I could see the giant blackened scar leading down into the water - to what was no doubt a hole in the hull of the ship. I glanced over at Avani and Manik, who were both just staring at the ship in shock as it lister towards us ever more dangerously. I could see hordes of sailor jumping off the other side, no doubt knowing what I knew. I yelled at Avani and Manik to start swimming away from the ship, and while it took a few tries, they eventually heard me over the pounding rain.

 

There was an odd sound - sound, sort of like a sploosh that I barely heard over the rain, and I turned in time to see the bottom of the mast sink into the sea. The rest of it sunk down with it in a matter of seconds, and even from the distance I’d managed to get from the ship,I could see a couple of sailors sucked down with the large body of moving water from the ship.

 

My heart ached for them, but the best thing I could do for them was turn and paddle to catch up with Avani and Manik, who hadn’t heard the ship sink. Hopefully, some of the other sailors would be strong enough to rescue them, but none of that would matter if the universe sank into chaos.

 

The cold water sapped my energy, and after what had probably been only an hour, the three of us are all resting and clinging to our barrels. I’d tied us together with the cord’d been making (it had been caught on my boot, It it was strong enough to hold us together.

 

I didn’t notice it at first - my eyes were stinging and red from the salt, and weary with the prospect of being open for hours more - but after a while of staring at the blot on the horizon, I started. I realized that after the rest of the day I’d rescues Avani, the whole day where we’d no doubt stopped on Shu Jing, we were probably fairly close to Bibiddo Island.

 

“Look!” I called to Avani and Manik, who were both exhausted and seemed to be sleeping on top of their barrels. Avani glanced up, then mumbled something like  _ that’s nice _ and let her head drop back down onto the barrel again. Manik didn’t even bother to act like he was paying attention. I

couldn’t help but yawn, despite my excitement, and let my head drop onto the wood of my barrel.  _ Just a moment wouldn’t be too bad. Right? I’ll just close my eyes for a moment . . . _

 

I blinked my eyes open to darkness and disorientation. Whatever was beneath me was - solid. I’d tried to shift my weight automatically to compensate for the waves, and almost and fallen back when the world didn’t shift accordingly. It took me a moment to remind myself that this was what land felt like, that this was what I’d lived on for most of my life.

 

The next thing I became aware of - once I was done remembering land - was the feeling of salt dried all over my clothes and coating my skin. I licked my lips instinctively, and was rewarded with the taste of salt.

 

Eventually I managed to convince myself to sit up and open my eyes. I blink to see Avani and Manik sleeping on the floor next to me, and I manage to stumble my way out of the room. Outside the room, there was a hallway, and I carefully checked the doors until I found a bathroom. Once that business was taken care of, I wandered past the rest of the closed doors to the end of the hallway, then back the way I came.

 

It didn’t really take long, there had only been two doors between the room I woke up in and the bathroom, and there had only been two door until the end of the hallway. There weren’t any doors on the other side of the hallway, so it didn’t take me long to reach the open end of the hallway.

 

I stared at the open room, and the old woman sitting in it for a moment before the woman turned. “Hello dearie! It’s so nice to see you awake!”

 

She set aside the mending that she’d had on her lap and bustled over to look at me. I met her brown eyes after she’d looked over me, and clucked over the salt that covered me, and she smiled widely, enveloping her eyes in wrinkles. “Alright dearie, I expect you’ll be wanting a bath and a nice drink, right?”

 

She didn’t wait for my answer as she tugged me towards the door on the far wall of the kitchen - living room area that she’d been in. I went with it, feeling bewildered. She pointed me towards a shack on the other side of a clearing within stalks of bamboo. “I put a couple of drinks in there for you earlier, and a change of clothes, so you should be fine. I’ll send your friends out when they wake up.”

 

And with that, she shut the door behind me. I blinked at the shack, turned to glance at the closed door behind me, then sighed and cautiously walked over to the shack. I was slightly surprised when I found a spring inside. As I glanced around some more, I found the clothing, and the crinks that the old woman had mentioned, and I cautiously approach them. The drinks seem normal enough - water and apple orange juice - and so do the clothes, for the Fire Islands at least.

 

The pair of clothes that were my size and more masculine had, once again, a red collar attached to a shirt, only this time the shirt was more of the shade of my cholla desert berries. Again there were a pair of knee length breeches, but the shoes that the woman had provided for all of us were sandals.

 

The clothes make me think guiltily of the other set of clothes that Ryung had given me - the set that I had readily abandoned when I knew that the ship was going down. Before I can wallow in my guilt though, I heard someone’s footsteps, and I glanced up to see Manik emerge in the doorway.

 

“Hey,” he said after a moment. “You need help or something?”

 

“No,” I replied, shaking my head and finally pulling my clothes off - starting with the hair tie and the boots. ”So, what did you get out of the old woman?”

 

“Nothing much,” Manick said, his voice muffled by his shirt as he pulled it over his head. “Just that her husband found us floating out at sea while he was fishing, and that he brought us back.”

 

“That’s more than I got,” I commented. “I didn’t find out anything.”

 

I sighed as I sink into the hot water. It was my first time at a hot spring, but to be honest, I was more interested in getting the salt off my skin than I was in enjoying the water. Another set of footsteps sounded, and Manik froze as Avani emerged at the entrance to the shack, but I simply glanced away. We’d shared enough baths at oases that neither of us was ashamed of it. Manik of the other hand had obviously never been anywhere near a girl without clothes, judging from the way he went bright red as Avani’s clothes dropped to the ground, and she settled into the bah with us.

 

“Did you find out anything about the old woman?” I asked her in lieu of a greeting as I passed the bar of soap that I’d found.

 

“She was once well off,“ Avani noted, accepting the bar of soap with a nod. “All of her clothes, including the one in here are better than could be expected of any normal Islander, and they’re not the kind of things you can buy on a random spending spree either.”

 

“She told Manik that her husband was a fisher, and that he found us and brought us back here.”

 

“So, we know practically nothing about the woman,” Avani observed in disgust as I hauled myself out of the water and grabbed the cloth hanging off of bars on the wall.

 

“Looks to be that way,” Manik sighed, still turned away from Avani very carefully.

 

“Alright, I’m going back in,” I said after I pulled the set of clothes that had been left out for me on. “Can one of you -”

 

“Come here,” Manik sighed. He stood and - careful not to get water on my clothes - pulled my hair up into a top knot.

 

“Thank you,” I muttered, feeling slightly disgruntled at my lack of self dependence as I stood up. I fished my knife out of the pile of salt encrusted clothes, untied the knot that had kept it in its sheath during the battle, and quickly, but carefully washed it off. Manik waved to me in response to a murmured goodbye, and I exited the shack to return to the old lady’s house.

 

“Ah! Come in, come in!” the woman said, and I did so. In the time that I’d been in the bath house, she’d  hung a pot over the fire, and now it was bubbling merrily with a  yellow broth that was thick with vegetables and tofu. She had me sit down on a pad of some sort next to the fire, and regarded me shrewdly. “So, did you like the juice? The bath?”

 

“They were both nice, thank you,” I said after a moment, and she grinned at me.

 

“Good! Now, what’s your name?”

 

“I’m Ilesh.”

 

“Ilesh, Ilesh,” the woman muttered to herself as she stirred the soup. “Oh! Ilesh Shalim’s chosen! I knew I’d heard that name before.”

  
That’s all for today!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's today's chapter!


	20. Librarian? Scat!

Alright, you can come out now. You here to hear the next part of the story? That’s what I thought.

 

So, the old woman recognised me - or rather my name, and knew that I was Shalim’s chosen - his blessed child to revive him if he died. “You know who I am?”

 

“Well I probably shouldn’t,” she said with a chuckle, “but I do. You’re so fascinating, dearie! Now, would you rather have roasted cholla mesquitato cakes or some dried agave yucca with your soup.”

 

“Who are you?” I ask in bewilderment.

 

“Who am I?” the woman asked, pausing in her digging through a cupboard to glance back at me. “Oh! That’s right! I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Benzaiten, dearie. It’s nice to meet you.”

 

“Benzaiten,” I said slowly, scrambling to remember the name. Then I went pale. “Benzaiten, of words and speech, and competitor with Wan Shi Tong for the best library?”

 

“Yes, dearie, that’s me,” Benzaiten said absently as she turned back to the closet She glanced up when I didn’t reply after a moment to see me positively shaking. “Oh, are you worried about the books you left on the ship? You needn’t worry, my kitsune grabbed all of them before a drop of water could touch them. You tell your aunt that she has good taste in books next time you see her.”

 

“Niyakedo survived?”

 

“Hm? Oh, perhaps. I was more bothered with getting to all of those precious books. Then my Bhaskar brought the three of you home and I had my hands full caring for you, dearie. It’s not like it’ll matter if she survived or not, you’ll be seeing her whenever she reaches the spirit world.” Benzaiten nodded happily to herself as she pulled a straw basket out of her closet and opened the lid to glance inside. “There are my cholla cakes!”

 

She bustled happily back over to the fire and set the basket down next to me. “Help yourself dearie. And you! You can can come in now!”

 

I glanced over to see Manik standing uncertainly in the doorway in red robes that approximated his normal priestly garments. He came in after a moment and came over to sit next to me. I pulled him closer and immediately started to whisper into his ear. “That’s Benzaiten, the Benzaiten. She’s apparently been watching us or something for a while, but she didn’t know who we were until I told her my name.”

 

“Great. All those books -”

 

“She saved them, don’t worry,” I reassured him before he could really think too much about that.

 

“You really should try my cholla mesquitato cakes,” Benzaiten called, interrupting our whispered conversation, and I grabbed one of the cakes from the straw basket. Manik followed suite a moment later, and we both stayed in almost terrified silence as we ate the cakes. “So, what do you think?”

 

“They’re delicious,” I said, and while the response was automatic, it wasn’t untruthful. The cake I’d eaten had been quite good, but as the old saying said, nothing is ever quite like your mother’s food. A stab of longing for my mother’s mesquitato cakes, dry as they could sometimes be, had overwhelmed me as I ate Benzaiten’s cakes.

 

“I’m glad, dearie,” Benzaiten replied gently. “I wasn’t entirely sure that I had the recipe down right - you Ramlah don’t tend to write things down, and so I got it entirely from an outsider’s description of the process. You’re the first Ramlah to have come my my since I got that, and while I liked the way they taste, it means something quite different if you think it’s good, dearie.”

 

“They’re good,” I reaffirmed, blinking back tears.

 

“You needn’t linger,” Benzaiten called, and I glanced over at the door to see Avani, who looked comfortable in her - well, it was basically one the many Fire Island female warrior outfits.

 

“Thank you for the clothes,” Avani said, pulling a fan off of her belt and flicking it open to cover the lower half of her face. “Can I have several more pairs?”

 

Benzaiten laughed in delight as she mover over to the side of the room to pull out a couple of soup bowls. “Of course you may! I’ve got every pattern down in triplicate, it won’t be any hardship to make you several different outfits, in Earth Kingdom greens as well!”

 

Avani nodded her satisfaction as she walked over to sit next to me. “You see? I told you someone understood that fashion and functionality weren’t strangers.”

 

“Avani,” I sighed in exasperation, my tears forgotten. “I just said that it didn’t happen in my culture. In case you hadn’t notice, we’re not surrounded by my culture anymore! Besides, it’s not like any of the Earth Kingdoms were any better. Look at all of the ridiculous dresses.”

 

“Hmph,” Avani grunted, then reached forward to grab a cholla mesquitato cake. “Oh. This is rather good. If cholla cakes were like this all the time, I could see how you liked them so much.”

 

“Don’t go around insulting my mother’s cooking!” I demand, poking her, and she winced away from me.

 

“What -“ I glanced over her and realized that she was still sunburned, ”Sorry. I forgot.”

 

“It’s fine,” Avani said as she accepted a bowl of soup from Benzaiten. “Just try not to do it again.”

 

“Teenagers!” Manik groaned as he accepted his soup bowl.

 

“Adults,” Avani and I returned in unison as I accepted the soup bowl from Benzaiten, the response an automatic reaction after years of using it as a reply to my mother whenever she’d complained about the pair of us ganging up on her.

 

“Ah!” Benzaiten laughed as she settled down on a cushion across the fire from us. “The three of you are the most excitement I’ve seen since I allowed Bhaskar to go off and try to fulfil his illusions of fantasy!”

 

“Would that be your husband, ma’am?” Avani asked politely before she held her bowl up to her lips to sip from it again.

 

“Yes, Bhaskar’s my husband,” Benzaiten said with a warm smile. “I don’t think I’ve introduced myself to you yet though - I am called Benzaiten.”

 

Avani froze for a moment, the carefully set her bowl down and swallowed the soup in her mouth. Before she could talk, I leaned over and quickly informed her that no, we weren't about to be smited because we had allowed precious books to be drowned. Avani recovered quickly, the started talking again before I could stop her.

 

“So, is Bhaskar your husband?” she asked Benzaiten as she picked her bowl up once again.

 

“Yes, he is dearie,” Benzaiten replied.

 

“So, how does that work?”

 

“Well, I meet him ‘round his every reincarnation,” Benzaiten told her, and the pair fell into conversation together about reincarnation and men. It was interesting to hear how she had managed to find him each time he came back around the cycle of reincarnation, but once I finished my soup, I found myself yawning. Eventually, Benzaiten noticed my exhaustion, and she sent me back to the room where I had woken up with instructions to search in the closet for a bedroll. My clothes came back off easily enough, and I unrolled the bedroll on the floor. I lay down on the pad provided by the bedroll, and pulled the blanket up to cover my legs. Voices down the hall lulled me slowly into sleep.

 

I woke up to Avani clinging to me, and my rather more usual morning sleepiness. Normally I would have made an attempt to become a properly functioning person at that point - or rather I would have pulled my clothes on and gone wander off to find someone I recognised and plant myself next to them until they gave me food. This time - after a token attempt, during which I registered vaguely that arms wrapped around me meant I could not get up - I simply lay there staring at the ceiling.

 

I was aware - in the half awake daze that was my consciousness halfway between sleep and a state of awakeness - that Avani was probably having a nightmare from the little gasing sounds she was making, and I remember thinking something along the lines of ‘Bad sleep. Bad sleep is bad. Bad is bad. Go go bad.’ as I struggled to get a hand out of Avani’s embrace to rub her hair.

 

I got more and more anxious - in the dreamy way that I felt things before food - and I eventually managed to get a hand free to brush it through her hair, and Avani went still for a moment before she sighed and relaxed. I remember feeling satisfied as I gently patted avani’s hair for a moment, thoughts like ‘Bye bye bad bad. Koh said you had.’

 

Yes, yes, I know it’s silly, but I hadn’t eaten yet. Some of you have seen me before food right? I know I sound quiet, but I can assure you I’m probably thinking something along those lines, only made to fit a different situation. Eventually, Avani rolled over and back onto her own bedroll, and I discovered I was free after a couple of moments. I pushed blankets down, put my clothes on automatically, and wandered out into the hallway.

 

There was a quickly pitstop in the bathroom, then I moved in a manner that was more reminiscent of the undead that have been revived than anything alive. There was food! I sat down - later I realized that it was the same spot that I’m sat the day before - and just waited for the food.

 

There was a laugh, then a bowl of rice oat porridge was set on the stone before me. “Here you go dearie! Eat up!”

 

“Is that boy always like that?”

 

“Bhaskar!”

 

“I ain’t doing anything but asking an honest question!”

 

“No, he isn’t like that all the time, he’s just not always entirely aware first thing in the morning.”

 

“Hmph. Well, make sure you give the lot of them enough to keep them going.”

 

“I wouldn’t have done anything else, Bhaskar.”

  
And that’s all for today!


	21. To Get Out

Hello again. You ready for today? Alright, let me get started.

 

I became more aware of what was happening as I ate, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to Bhaskar because he left before I was awake. Avani stumbled in with a yawn - I had to remind myself that she was having nightmares and not sick - Manik following a minute later. They both accepted the rice oat porridge and started talking together about plans to get to Honoiro. Once Avani and Manik had finished their porridge, and Benzaiten had cleared the plates away, the spirit cleared her throat.

 

“Now, you three need a secure way to get to the far side of Honoiro, right?” she asked after we’d turned to her, and Avani nodded cautiously. “Well, I know a person or two who would be thrilled to help.”

 

“That is most kind of you, Lady Benzaiten,” Avani said, fluttering the fan she had flicked open after she was done eating. (I know now that in that point, it had gone from a show of confidence to a shield to hide her from the world, but hadn’t known that t the time. “And under what conditions might these people help?”

 

“Hm, you’re a smart one, aren’t you dearie,” Benzaiten stated with a smile. “My friends, would like to meet you and test you. You might be hurt from your the testing but if you pass, they will protect you like they guard their own life.”

 

My lips tightened slightly at that because either way, it was looking probable that the revival ceremony would determine the fate of the world, and by extension, the lives of her friends. Avani snapped her fan shut and tapped it on her left hand. “We’ll talk. If they don’t insult us, we’ll take their test.”

 

“Alright,” Benzaiten said, looking unperturbed. “I’ll tell them. If you would like to practice until they arrive, the clearing between here and the bath house is free.”

 

“Thank you, Lady Benzaiten,” the three of us murmured as we filed out into the courtyard. Once we were out there, we sort of stood there and stared at each other helplessly. Avani was probably the worst off of the three of us. In the Earth Kingdom, it was unacceptable for any woman - with the sole exception of the avatar - to learn fighting. I wasn’t much better off - with only training to deflect, and a finishing move that I doubted would work on spirits.

 

Manik was likely the most prepared of us, with his training to handle spirits, but a glance at him revealed that he wasn’t all that confident about his chances either. That was understandable though. Priests were there to prevent spirits from being angered, and to defeat the small spirits that came from heirlooms. Spirits of the kind that a greater spirit like Benzaiten would know were the kind of spirits that had a priest quietly evacuating their town and sending out a call for the avatar or the nearest liang ge jingshen.

 

After a moment of hopeless silence, Avani sighed, pulled a second fan out, and snapped them both open. “Come at me.”

 

“Avani, you know as well as I do that you don’t know how to fight.”

 

“Well, I’m going to learn to,” Avani replied stubbornly.

 

“With your fans?”

 

“My fans are made from the strongest materials your mother could find. They are better than anything else I could attempt to use. Most swords aren’t even made to be the same quality as my fans according to the blacksmith who put them together.”

 

“Well, the only one of us who knows how to fight is Manik. So?”

 

“Ilesh, all that I ever learned was to block and deflect attacks. And over half of those lesson were mostly on how to sneak the movements that I needed to call Kun’s power into my fight!”

 

“Well, then try to fight me. Tell me how you think I can do better, but either way, I am doing this!” Avani insisted, and I sighed. I had no idea what I was doing other than that I shouldn’t try to hit with a clenched fist. I approached heh and bent my knees slightly, then, telegraphing my every move, I slowly swung my palm towards her. Equally slowly, Avani raised the fan on the side I was swinging from and directed my hand to the side and away from her body. Then, with a twist of her wrist as she continued guiding me sent my arm downwards.

 

I followed through with the movement until my face was an inch from her chest and I was balanced mostly on my left foot. Manik came over to Avani and quietly corrected her stance - she’d been facing me full on, and while that was admirable and all, it was also a good way of showcasing all of your weak spots. He showed her how to lower her weight so that it would be harder to push her off balance. I waited patiently for him to finish with that, then I stood up once again and slowly swung at her once again.

 

She deflected me slowly once again, but already I could feel the difference. Her grip on her fans was stronger. The twist of her wrist that had looked awkward before looked natural with confidence. All of us started when Benzaiten called out that her friends were here. Manik flinched away from the grip he had had on Avani’s shoulders, and I had to quickly dodge backwards to avoid Avani’s fan flying up to cover her face.

 

“Come on,” Manik said gently, offering me a hand up. “Let’s go see what they want.”

 

“Yeah,” I said, letting him pull me up. Inside, there was a pair of what appeared to be people with masks on. Both of the masks were brightly painted in reds and whites. It was their disinterested glance at me that clued me into the fact that like Shalim’s and Ryung’s masks, right now, that red and white was their actual face.

 

“Are these the humans that made you send for us?” the one with more red on her mask asked Benzaiten, who was sitting by the fire with a cup of tea.

 

“Yes, this is Ilesh Shalim’s chosen, and his companions.”

 

“He is small. And young,” the one with less red on his mask observed, moving so that he could watch us more. “And none of them have spoken. Are they even intelligent?”

 

“I’m intelligent enough to know when someone insults me in my presence,” I snap. “Humans can’t -”

 

I cut myself off and glance at Avani and Manik, who are staring at me in surprise. “Normal humans cannot understand spirits.”

 

“Oh-ho!” the one who had spoken first turns. “So he can understand us.”

 

Benzaiten sent me a warning look, and my teeth clicked closed. Avani stepped closer to me and asked what was happening in whispered tones. Benzaiten talked with the pair as I replied cautiously, never taking my eyes off of them. “We forgot that humans can’t understand spirits. Or rather, I did because I havn’t been unable to understand any of the spirits we’ve encountered.”

 

“Stop blaming yourself,” Manik murmured over my left shoulder. He was stooping slightly - both of them were so that words wouldn’t carry as far, and when I glanced back, it gave the impression that they were hiding behind me. “All of us should have remembered. I’m a priest, I have work because people can’t understand the spirits. Besides, the both of you have been talking to Ryung, right? And we’re currently in Benzaiten’s house and we can understand her.”

 

“Why is that?” I asked in sudden curiosity. “I remember, we both understood Wan Shi Tong as well.”

 

“Well, both Wan Shi Tong and Benzaiten are spirits of words, they want to understand what words they have. They both worked hard to gain an understanding of human language. They were both hunted down because humans wanted a mouthpiece in the spirits world, so they both made themselves very hard for humans to find. As for Ryung, he’s a messenger spirit. It’s easier to receive a message and deliver it - especially if it’s a verbal message if you understand the language. He’s always been known as rather more understanding of human cares than other spirits because of this.” Manik paused and glanced at Benzaiten and the two spirits, who were still talking. “Should we really be talking about that at a time like this though?”

 

“Until they choose to test us, we don’t really have much of a choice,” Avani whispered back over my shoulder. “I, for one, don’t want to use Ilesh as a go between, so our condition is useless. All we can really do is try their test.”

 

Manik nodded and both of them stepped back. The spirits all looked over at us a moment later, as if we had cued them. “Have you decided?”

 

“We’ll take your test,” I told the spirits, and bowed respectfully to them. The two spirits exchanged a glance then bowed to us in unison.

 

“We would be honored to accompany you and your friends to Honoiro, my lord.”

 

“What?” I asked, bewildered.

 

“We would be honored to accompany you and your friends to Honoiro, my lord,” the one with more red on her mask said patiently as they straightened up.

 

“Oh,” I mumbled, glancing over at Benzaiten to see what she thought. “Um, I thought you were going to test us?”

 

“We did.”

 

“Alright,” I said hesitantly. “These are my companions, Manik Priest of Kun, and Avani of the Earth Kingdoms.”

 

“I am Agneya,” the one with more red on her mask introduced, and I shivered. That was Ember, Agni’s daughter. “And this is Makara Jyothi.”

 

And that was Sparks, Agneya’s brother.

 

“Alright now, you lot should be fine to go,” Benzaiten said. She handed a bundle to Avani. “Here are those clothes you asked for, dearie. I do hope you like them.”

 

And with that, we found ourselves pushed out of her house.

 

See you tomorrow children!

 


	22. Arival

Nice to see you again children! Alright, so, back on track.

 

We’d just been kicked out of Benzaiten’s house with Agneya and Makara Jyothi. I’m the only one there who understood everyone. And we needed to get to Honoiro

 

“So,” I cleared my throat. “Avani, Manik, this is Agneya and Makara Jyothi.”

 

A look of understanding slowly dawned over my friends’ faces as I turned to talk to the spirits. “How are you planning to get us there?”

 

“We were planning to fly you,” Agneya volunteered. She glanced over me, then to my friends. “That is, if you agreed with that course of action, lord.”

 

“Would you two mind being flown over to Honoiro?”

 

“Yes,” Manik said immediately, looking slightly pale.

 

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Avani put in, glancing at Manik.

 

The conversation continued in that vein, the spirits offering different forms of transportation, and someone shooting them down until Agneya finally sighed in exasperation. “If none of these are acceptable, that how were you planning to get to Honoiro?”

 

“You know what?” I said, glancing over at Manik. “Put us to sleep, and fly us over to Honoiro. When we wake up, tell me something and I’ll tell Manik that you hadn’t expected your instant transportation skill to knock us out. It’s not like we’ll be able to tell that time had passed since the sun’s not moving.”

 

The pair of spirits stared at me for a moment then laughed. “I forgot how tricky you were. Give us a moment. We’ll need to go get some herbs to put you lot to sleep safely.”

 

“What are they doing?” Manik asked as the two spirits kind of leapt up into the sky and disappeared.

 

“Presumably they’re going to get some herbs. They offered to travel us to the island instantly, but it’s not always entirely safe, so they’re going to make something to make the trip safer for us,” I replied nonchalantly.

 

“And you didn’t ask us?”

 

“Manik, you or Avani or I have rejected literally every other option. I figured that this would be the best option.”

 

“But I - oh, fine,” Manik sighed, and I turned to follow his gaze and glance up. The spirits were back with loosely woven bags of bamboo hemp.

 

“This should work to put you three to sleep and not harm you any,” Agneya said before I could ask what they’d brought.

 

“And how do you know that?” I asked patiently. “Have you seen humans use it on each other?”

 

“Yes,” Marak Jyothi said, putting his bag down. “Many woman have used this to make tea for themselves, their husbands, and their children. I’m sure that it’s not going to hurt you.”

 

“Alright,” I turn back to Manik and Avani. “They’re going to be making a tea that should help us with the effects of transportation.”

 

The was quickly brewed, and while Manik eyed it and the leftover leaves, he drank it quickly. I drank my cup as well, and blinked. Avani was lying next to me, her hand clutching the wrist that wasn’t holding my mugg. Her other hand was clutching the package of clothing that Benzaiten had given her before she pushed us out of her house.

 

“Hey,” I told Agneya. “See you on the other side.”

 

I only heard her response faintly as I drifted off to sleep. “See you on Honoiro, big brother.”

 

I woke up as slowly as I did at times, but I managed to shake myself awake without any help this time though. Avani was still asleep, and still clutching at me like she would die if I left. I took a moment to brush a hand along her face. She was still sunburned, but now her skin had turned the color of old parchment. And now that I was looking at her, just looking at her, I realized that this, right here and sleeping in front of me, was the most relaxed I’d seen her since I told her what being Shalim’s chosen meant.

 

“I know what you did Ilesh,” Manik said from behind me. “I don’t really blame you, we did need to get here, but . . . please don’t do that again.”

 

“Alright. I won’t,” I say rolling over onto my back. I don’t try to justify myself - Manik said he understood, and if he didn’t understand the actual reasons I used, I wasn’t going to try to fight him. “Avani, do you feel alright?”

 

“Ilesh,” Avani said slowly as I leaned over her.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Do you feel alright?”

 

“I feel . . . better.”

 

“Good,” I sighed as I glanced up. Agneya and Makara Jyothi were gone, but I had expected that. They were busy spirits, no matter how amused and carefree they had acted back there. No matter what they’d said.

 

“So, is this close enough Ilesh?”

 

I started at the voice, Manik’s hand slipping off my shoulder as we both turned to stare at Agneya, who was grinning at us over a pile of wood the looked like it had been chopped for a fire.

 

“Agneya,” I managed to cough before I shook my head to loose the expression of surprise. “I don’t know. If we’re on Honoiro, it should be close enough to walk to wherever it is we need to go.”

 

“We’re on Honoiro,” Avani said, and I glanced down, then my eyes widened in concern as I registered that she was shivering despite the heat and the humidity. She was staring at something in the distance, but I didn’t glance away from her..

 

“Avani, you’ve never been Honoiro, it’s alright -” I tried to comfort her, but she just shook her head and pointed to the  rock behind me.

 

“No, I know where we are. She used to play the scene over and over, and Inari Shalim! He looked so much like you! I thought she was just trying to torture me, but look! There’s blood! Blood! She killed you right there before you could leap to the sky to go take the sun from Ryung! She showed that over and over, and you can’t make me watch that again Ilesh! It was bad enough when it wasn’t you, when it was Shalim, but he looked so much like you! You can’t make me watch that again! There was blood - I don’t want to know what it looks like to see someone die!” Avani cried, and I yelped as she used my wrist as leverage to pull me over her and to lay on top of me.

 

“Avani, don’t worry, that’s not how the revival ceremony works -”

 

“What’s wrong with her? Is she alright -”

 

“Can’t make me watch that again, not again, I can’t lose you again Ilesh, Inari, it took me so long to realise that Shalim wasn’t you, I thought he was you, I thought that she was killing you over and over -”

 

Everyone was talking, and I couldn’t get enough breath to talk over them -

 

“Can everyone be quiet?” Makara Jyothi yelled from behind Agneya, and Avani and Manik both went silent and glance up at Makara. Remember, just because they couldn’t understand spirits, that didn’t mean they couldn’t hear them. And Makara Jyothi had been quite loud.

 

“Great, now that we’re all quiet, what happened?” he asked his sister.

 

“I don’t know,” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up. “The girls just started yelling, then she grabbed Shalim and pulled him down and lay on top of him!”

 

“Calm down,” I told her, then glanced up at Avani. Her face was hovering over mine, and I wrapped the arm not trapped in her hand around her. “Are you alright now?”

 

“You can’t make me watch you die,” she said, letting her head drop so her words were muffled by my neck. “I can’t see you die again.”

 

“Can I trust that you’re alright, at least?” I ask Manik, and he nodded with his lips pressed together.

 

“My friend broke down because apparently Senge showed her Shalim dying over and over here. Apparently he looked like me, and she, understandably as my friend, doesn’t want to see me die,” I explain to the two spirits.

 

“Ah,” said Agneya, looking sad. “We’ll just be waiting - um, over there, lord. And making a fire.”

 

“Avani, why didn’t you say anything before?” I asked her gently as tears wet my collar.

 

“I thought it was just a dream,” Avani moaned. “I thought she was just taking the opportunity to try to drive me crazy. Be honest Ilesh, what would you have done without me?”

 

“Well, you always ask me the easy questions,” I laugh. “I would have probably died. I hit my head when Shalim died, remember? I wouldn’t have lived because I wouldn’t have been able to get enough water. And before that, when about when I found you? I wouldn’t have found my way back to my tribe if you hadn’t seen it. And if you hadn’t come along, I would have died of dehydration out there.”

 

Avani sobbed for a moment before she managed a watery, “Exactly, you idiot. And you forgot Iwashimizu.”

 

“Avani, if I tried to list every time that you saved my life, we would be here all day,” I told her with fond exasperation.

 

“Maybe that’s exactly what I want to happen,” Avani mumbled with a hiccup, and I stilled as I remembered why Avani had become hysterical in the first place.

 

“Avani, I have to do this.”

 

“Oh, I know,” Avani said. “I remember - the world will end and all. I just - I just - I can’t!”

 

“Oh, find me there, where the winds are fair,” I murmured quietly to her. The sky was bright blue above us. “Where the sun shines like a warning.”

 

Avani hummed along as I sang her favorite song, then she joined in gently. It’s not a particularly good song, but she’d always like the meaning. I found that I couldn’t help but like it too as I sang it and watched the blue sky above. Freedom to really choose for myself would be nice.

 

And that’s it for today, I’ll see you lot tomorrow.

 


	23. Something Else?

Nice to see you lot. Thank you for not trampling my garden on your way in this time! Alright, let’s get on with the story. We were singing when I left off, right?

 

“How sweet.” I glance up and take in the spirit before me. I should have known that she wasn't about to just let us go and revive Shalim, not after what she’d done to him in the first place, and all of the effort she’d gone to in order to kidnap Avani.

 

“Hello, Senge,” I said coldly as Avani let me roll to the side so that I could sit up and turn to look at Senge. Manik’s hand settled on my shoulder as I sat up with grass in my disheveled hair. “What do you want so desperately this time? Are you here to watch as the sun is returned to its rightful cycle?”

 

“Of course not, Shalim.” The sun daisy sent me a lazy grin as she waved a hand. Manik’s grip on my shoulder tightened as everything around us disappeared, and we all yelped as we found ourselves falling to towards the bright blue sea far below. Her voice echoed mockingly around us as we fell. “You didn’t think I would just let you go ahead and undo my hard work?  Not, not after all of the preparations I went through in order to get this far! No, Shalim will not be coming back!”

 

“Then you doom yourself and the world to Chaos!” I yell into the wind. “For all that  _ they _ may seem to be harmless now, Order has been weakened and cannot reclaim what has been lost anymore!”

 

“Oh, but you’ve forgotten the other option,” Senge laughed. “Just like everyone else, you’ve forgotten the second option. Don’t you remember?”

 

“Replacing Shalim,” I murmured in horror as Senge crowed the words out, and I glanced over at Manik and Avani. Avani looked almost like she was going to faint any second, but she managed an odd smile. Manik had his eyes closed and the hand that wasn’t holding me was in front of his face he he murmured prayers. The option was a valid one - Manik himself had told us that it was an option back when we first met him. I had read of that very option several times in my book - when a spirit had taken a liking to a family and decided to protect them after their original spirit was gone.

 

The thing was, that option was the hardest option. Whichever spirit it was that had decided to take over a position had to go and actively search for the scattered bits of self that had enabled the original spirit to do its job. There was no guarantee that the searcher would be able to find all of the parts of self that were needed - they might end up with the intense need to protect a family, but none of the world crossing abilities that are needed to go along with that.

 

The chance of not finding all of the needed bits of self increased if the spirit had a blessed child. Even if that child did not try to revive the spirit, the parts that were needed to actually guard the family tended to try and stay with something it knew - the largest clumps of which were blessed children.

 

More practically, why would  _ Senge _ want to gain Shalim’s powers. The answer came to me in a flash of terrible inspiration. With Shalim’s abilities, she could touch the sun - not just hold it where it was like the spirits that had fought Ryung and Shalim, but actually touch it without harm to herself. And if she could touch Agni’s body, she could kill him. Killing Agni . . . was unimaginable. He was one of the great spirits, he had always seemed invincible because no one but Ryung and I - no one but Ryung and Shalim could touch him. But if Senge could kill Agni, she could reshape fire as she wished it.

 

“You see? I am not as insane as you thought.” Senge’s laughter echoed around us as we approached the water spread below us. I could see schools of fish spirits swarming under the waves through our shadow. And I could see - what?

 

“Got you,” Agneya breathed in my ear, and I found myself slammed sideways inches above the water. Breath I hadn’t even been aware that I had lost came back to me in gasps. We gradually lost speed until she was hovering and not flying. I glanced over to Makara Jyothi, who had Avani over one shoulder, and a pale Manik over the other shoulder.

 

“Agneya,” I said once I was able to talk without gasping in between syllables. “Thank you so much.”

 

“You are welcome, lord,” Agneya said as she gently lowered herself the last hand or so down until that she was standing on the surface of the water instead of merely hovering over it. “I’m just glad I was able to catch you before you hit the water.”

 

“Do you think you can get us back to the human world?” I asked her as she turned to face Makara Jyothi.

 

”Yes, it should be -” Agneya cut herself off with a frown that only grew as she narrowed golden eyes in concentration. “Makara, can you get to the human world?”

 

Makara Jyothi closed his eyes for a moment as he let himself descend to the surface of the ocean. He opened them moments later to reply that he had not. Agneya was grimacing when I looked back up at her.

 

“Well,” she sighed as she carefully set me down onto the surface of the ocean, “it’s never too late to bless people, though I do believe that this will make them liang ge jingshen. Lord, would you please ask your friends which of us they would prefer to receive a blessing from.”

 

“Why are you offering to bless Avani and Manik?” I asked as I tried to keep my balance on the ocean. Makara Jyothi and Agneya made it look easy, and perhaps it was for them, but while the water might have somehow been able to support my weight - and Avani and Manik’s weight as Makara Jyothi set them down carefully - it was constantly shifting, changing and moving beneath my feet.

 

The effort to balance reminded me of that one time I had tried standing in the back of a cart, only worse in their unpredictability. I carefully grabbed Avani and Manik’s shoulders in an attempt to keep my balance and together we managed to stand much more stably that we had on our own.

 

“They need a blessing because they are in the spirit world, and there is a distinct possibility that they might not be able to leave for a while,” Makara Jyothi explained quietly from behind me. “We can grant them the ability to understand us. The blessing itself, no matter how much we give them will act as protection, showing that unless you want to mess with us, you should keep away from our marked.”

 

“Oh. I’ll ask them.” I turned to Avani and Manik, who were both looking down into the ocean beneath our feet.

 

“Look, the fish are coming back,” Manik remarked blandly, and I glanced down to see that his words were true. The fish spirits that had been scared away when we had landed on the surface of the water were now returning to their regular patterns.

 

“Would you rather be blessed by Agneya of Makara Jyothi?” I asked, opting not to reply to Manik’s comment.

 

“Agneya,” Avani replied. There was no doubt in her eyes as she glanced up from the ocean beneath our feet to look at me with her green eyes. I’m still pretty sure that half of the reason that Avani picked Agneya was because they were both women. “You’re asking because we’re in the spirit world now, and will need protection, correct?”

 

“That’s right,” I reply. She had more insights into the way the spirit world worked than I expected, but she was the one who had been kidnapped. It was likely that she’d put thought into ways to avoid being kidnapped again.

 

“I should choose Agneya,” Manik mused on my other side as I glanced at him. “Embers are closer to earth than sparks are.”

 

He looks up at me. “Tell Makara Jyoti that I would prefer his blessing.”

 

I nod at him, then relay my friend’s preference to the spirits. The supportive circle had to break up in order for the spirits to convey their blessings. Makara Jyothi set his hands on Manik’s shoulders and leaned forward so that the top of his head was touching Manik’s spine. I could see both of their lips moving. Agneya knelt in front of Avani and held her hands. I had to sit down without Manik and Avani’s support on the ocean, and after a moment of watching the two pairs, I found myself turning away.

 

They were both so involved in each other that even watching them made me feel like I was intruding on something private. I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened between Shalim and I had he not died. I’d only really met people who had known Shalim after he had died, so I wasn’t sure if their likening of me to Shalim was because of bits of Shalim that had found their way to me or because I truly was very much like him.

 

“Ilesh,” Avani said from behind me, a moment before her hand closed on my shoulder. There was something . . . more to her when I turned. She stood - straighter, in a different way than lessons of etiquette teach. And she was  _ more _ . I could tell from looking at her that something in her had changed fundamentally, that one last block that had always been holding her back, the words of her parents and tutors and all of the society she grew up in echoing to her that women who fought were terrible people were gone from her mind.

 

I remembered moments when she had stood like that before, forgetting what everyone had told her for just a moment, but she had always sort of slumped back into the posture of a proper lady the moment she had realised what she was doing. Now, I could see in the straightness of her her spine, in the tilt of her hips that she wasn’t going to be able to go back to being just a lady.

 

“Come on,” she smiled at me.

  
And that’s all for today.


	24. Is it Hot in Here?

No no no, don’t touch my saffron indigo, that stuff is precious! Let me see that! Alright now, you lot settle down. Alright, so Avani and Manik just received their blessings from Agneya and Makara Jyothi.

 

So after that, we followed the two spirits across the surface of the ocean. Occasionally fish spirits came up from beneath the waves to nibble at our toes. At first, it was as hard to walk as it had been to stand on the surface of the ever moving ocean originally, but we eventually picked up the trick of it. Agneya and Makara Jyothi didn’t comment on our troubles beyond a glance back at us every once in awhile as they spoke and a slight speeding up of their pace whenever we were up to it until we were walking along the surface of the ocean at the normal traveling pace.

 

We traveled for what probably would have been a day before I was able to see the low lying shadow of an island on the horizon. I’m tired by the point, but encouraged by sight of land. Agneya glanced back in time to catch me yawn, and she gave me an encouraging smile. “We’re almost there!”

 

“I can see that,” I sighed. Almost there meant not right now. The island grew closer, and I grew more tired. Avani and Manik beside me were both still full of energy though, and I smiled a bit ruefully as I turned my gaze back to the island. That was probably a side effect of their blessings, because they were practically glowing with energy. Then I notices, as we came closer to the island that the sky was getting darker. It wasn’t that the sun was going down or anything, when I glanced up to look at it, it was in the same position, but it was dimmed somehow.

 

“What’s up with the sun?” I asked finally as we set foot onto the rocky shore of the island, and Avani and Manik glanced upwards, looking shocked as if they hadn’t noticed the gradual darkening of the sun and the sky as we approached the island.

 

“The great spirits put up a filter around the sun in the spirit world. They can’t do anything about actually moving the sun, but they can give us the illusion of normality. The filter lightens and darkens the sun,” Makara Jyothi explained as we walked up the beach and towards the lights glowing father back from the shore.

 

“Come on,” Agneya said as we reached the pool of light cast by the first of the lanterns that lit the village before us. “I know of someone who might be able to help us.”

 

She stepped into the light, then paused and turned to face us humans. “Do any of you have a mask?”

 

I blinked, the crowds reminding me of of the time I had dreamed my way to a meeting with Chuangmu, and before I could question my own action, I reached forward and pulled a mask out of thin air and placed it on my face. Agneya blinked at me in surprise for a moment before she turned to Avani and Manik. “Either of you have a trick like that?”

 

They both shook their heads, and Agneya sighed. “Alright, give me a moment, I’m going to get you two your masks. I’ll be right back.”

 

And with those words, she turned and slipped into the crowd. Makara Jyothi glanced down at us, the red of his mask looking startlingly normal against the highly decorated masks of the people that I could see behind him. Agneya slipped out of the crowd after a couple of minutes with masks that were done in similar shades of red and white as her mask and Makara Jyothi’s mask. “Here.”

 

She passed the mask that had more red of the two to Avani and the mask that had more white of the two to Manik. “There. You should be safer now.”

 

Now that I think of it, I don’t know if you lot know why masks are so important. Can you tell me? Yes! That’s right. Spirits wear masks because knowledge of your image in the spirit world can allow others to cast magic on you.

 

“Alright, let’s go,” Agneya said, her gaze lingering on my mask for a moment before she turned, and with Makara Jyothi at our back, we followed her into the crowds. It was an odd feeling to once again be in a city after dark. We make our way through the crowd slowly, not drawing attention to ourselves by pushing and shoving, and eventually Agneya brought us behind one of the booths and held the door open for us so that we could slip into the building.

 

“Pele! Pele! I know you’re in here! I’ve got guests!,” Agneya yelled as she set something down on a table next to the door. There was a crash, then the sound of running footsteps. The door across from us slammed open to reveal a woman holding a very obviously broken mask to her face with one hand.

 

“Agneya!” the woman called in delight. She darted towards Agneya and threw her free arm around her as I finally remembered just where I’d heard that name before. Pele was another of the greater spirits, the Spirit of Volcanoes. “I thought you were off helping Lord Agni try to keep Chaos at bay! And Maraka, I haven’t seen you in a while”

 

“We  _ were _ fighting, but Benzaiten called, and you know how she is, she wouldn’t have called if she didn’t think she needed the help. Pele, this is Ilesh, Shalim’s chosen,” Agneya said in a rush as Pele drew back from their embrace. Pele glanced at me from behind the hand that was holding her mask together. Her eyes were odd, the same gold as Ryung, Makara Jyothi and Agneya, but they refused to stay gold, flickering through different shades, and sometimes even reaching the bright orange color of lava that I’ve seen in paintings.

 

“So, you’re the one we’ve been waiting for,” Pele said, running a finger along the cracks of her mask as she walked towards me. She took her hands away from the mask as she stopped in front of me. Without her hand covering it, I could see that the mask was indeed very much like those sold by humans. It was all black, and covered in tiny trails of bright orange. “Agneya, why haven’t you taken him to the spot where Shalim was killed yet.”

 

“I’m not a thing,” I object unthinkingly before Agneya could answer the questions posed to her. “And she tried. Senge sent us here, then blocked our way back.”

 

Pele looked caught off guard as she looked down at me, then up as Agneya. “He talked! Did you see that?”

 

“Pele, we’ve been telling you that humans could talk for millennia now,” Makara Jyothi said from behind me as he gently pulled me back and pushed me over to my silent friends. “It’s not our fault that you weren’t listening.”

 

“Yes, but I thought that humans couldn’t understand us,” Pele said as she allowed Agneya to pull her away. “I mean, I certainly can’t understand any of them when they run from me.”

 

“And you didn’t stop to think about the Avatar, or the liang ge jingshen, now did you? You didn’t think that we would bring them here on purpose without giving them any way to defend themselves, did you?” Agneya asked gently.

 

“Well, I guess not -”

 

“Agneya, Makara Jyothi.” Everyone glanced over to the  small being who had spoken. I let out a gasp of recognition as Agneya and Makara Jyothi walked over to the messenger spirit.

 

“What is she?” Avani asked me, speaking for the first time in a while.

 

“That’s Hei Jin,” I replied quietly, not looking away from the three spirits in front of me. “She’s one of Ryung’s messenger spirits.”

 

“Messenger spirits?” Manik asked. “I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

 

“When would you?” I hissed in reply. “You pray to the greater spirit, not the messenger themself.”

 

“I thought I was praying to the messenger,” Manik said as Agneya and Makara Jyothi turned around.

 

“Pele, we need to go, Father’s called for us. A part of the middle lands collapsed into Chaos. We need to tell him about the spirit who killed Shalim. Can you take them back to the human world?”

 

“You’re trusting me with that?” Pele asked softly, going up to Agneya and cupping her cheek with a careful hand. “You know how bad my temper is.”

 

“I know,” Agneya said. She buried her face in Pele’s neck. She must have talked, because Pele’s expression softened as she wrapped her arms around Agneya.

 

“Alright, lovely,” she said softly, then pulled Agneya closer to - oh, ew I forgot that they did that. I turned away, having seen quite enough kissing between Niyakedo and her various lovers. It may just be because I was going through a phase or something, but at the time, I found myself utterly disgusted by the idea of sex. I knew it happened, I knew  _ what _ happened (it was hard not to know with an Aunt like Niyakedo), and I just found the idea made me shiver in disgust. Even with Avani and Ryung, the most I wanted to do was sleep next to them.

 

“See you later,” Makara Jyothi said, and turned back in time to watch him and Avani leave.

 

“Was there anything else you needed to say?” Pele asked Hei Jin.

 

“Well,” Hei Jin hesitated as I turned from the door. “Shalim? No, Ilesh. I - you prayed to - do you want to talk?”

 

“Hei Jin,” I said warmly, ignoring the sudden looks I was getting from everyone else. “I would like to talk. Lady Pele, is there  place here we can talk together in?”

 

“Oh!” Pele said. She darted over to the door she had come through, which had rebounded off the wall and closed itself behind her. “Follow me.”

 

Hei Jin and I followed her after. I glanced back at Avani and Manik before I disappeared around the corner, and they both looked so lost.

  
And that’s all for today. See you tomorrow, children!


	25. To the Forest We Go!

Ow! Hey, stop running around in there! You’re going to knock something over! Come on, you lot. So, I was about to talk to Hei Jin right? Alright.

 

I followed Pele through the winding halls of her house with Hei Jin right behind me. Finally, she opened a door. “You two can talk in here. And, um, Ilesh was it? You can sleep in here once you are done talking.”

 

“Thank you, Lady Pele,” I said, turning to bow to her. She didn’t reply, only waving at me as she shut the door. I glanced back at Hei Jin, who had settled on the floor and was twisting her shirt nervously. I crossed my legs as I sat down, and for a while, the two of us just stared at each other. I hadn’t seen her for a while, and I was understandably worried, but I managed to not make my inspection too obvious. Her skin was the same leathery color is had always been, and she was still brushing back on of her bangs every time she looked up. Finally, I had to speak though. “How have you been?”

 

“I’ve been fine. I got your prayers. They were . . . different.” She paused and glanced up, brushing her bangs away impatiently as she always did. “You were different. But it was nice to hear from you. It was nice to know that you were alright. I was . . . worried.”

 

“Do the stars know that Shalim died?” I asked.

 

“They know,” she replied. We sat together sort of awkwardly after that, unsure of what to say. I still hadn’t remembered much more about her than the flashes of her fighting for Shalim during the first war. So many years had passed between now and the first war. So many wars had come between now and the first war.

 

“I’m sorry,” I finally said, making Hei Jin glance up at me. “I’ve held you here for so long - you must need to get back to your job. Thank you for talking to me.”

 

“It wasn’t - you weren’t a burden,” she replied. “Like I said. You were - it was nice to hear from you.”

 

“I’ll see you when I come back,” I replied, the words oddly involuntary. “For now, I need to sleep.”

 

“Goodbye,” Hei Jin replied, before she quickly disappeared in the way all of the messenger spirits were able to do. I turned, and actually took in the room this time. There was a bedroll tucked away in the corner of the otherwise empty room, and I go over to it and unroll it. I stare at the ceiling, contemplating the past couple of days. I got Avani back, only to lose Niyakedo. I still had no idea whether or not my Aunt had survived the storm. I found my way to the spot where another me had died, and I was ready to sacrifice myself in order to bring him back into the world, only for Avani to breakdown, and the spirit who had killed Shalim in the first place to strand us in the spirit world.

 

Chaos had finally claimed a part of this world, and with that, it had claimed the time and attention of my guides. I had nothing against Pele, but at this point,she was another stranger I had to deal with in order to achieve my goal. More time was nice and all, but I was worn out by now. I didn’t want to die, but I did want a rest, and with the way the world was going, I wasn’t going to be able to rest without dying anymore. I sighed and turned onto my side. I wasn’t going to get anything done it I didn’t sleep.

 

I woke up as tired as I usually was before food in the morning, and I stumbled out of the bed roll with a yan. The door to my room was opened, and I set myself to wandering and looking for the food. I’m fairly sure that I heard someone giggle at some point, but I just continued my hunt for food. I run into someone and fell back onto the floor.

 

“Oh, hello. I was just going to go get you. Your friends told me that you weren’t very awake in the mornings,” Pele said as she knelt down. She offered me a hand, and I took took it after a moment of staring at it blankly. I was not prepared for her to haul me to my feet and I stumbled into her again. She held me by the shoulders and pushed my back slightly. “Hey, are you alright?”

 

“Oh, you got Ilesh already?”  _ That was Manik - oh, nice, I can smell the fresh flatbread! _

 

“He just stumbled into me,” Pele said as she turned around and guided me into the room. “Is he alright? He’s acting oddly.”

 

“He always acts like that before he’s had breakfast,” Avani said with a laugh.  _ Aw, no meat. Oh well. _ “It always takes him the same time to to wake up after he starts eating too. Aparajita, his mother, used him to time her next batch of flatbread, and it always came out exactly right, just in time for him to eat it.”

 

“Well, that’s interesting. Is he going to serve himself, or . . ?”

 

“No, I’ll have to do that.”

 

“Alright.”

 

The food was nice and warm, and although there wasn’t any meat to go with my flat bread, Avani had put a bowl of berries in front of me along with the plate of flatbread, and they were better than meat because of their odd, wet sweetness. When I was done, I looked up from my meal to find Avani smiling at me over a mug of tea.

 

“You feeling more awake?” she asked me as I glanced over to Manik and Pele. I had to stare at Manik for a moment because it was still strange to to see him dressed in the red of the Fire Island clothes that Benzaiten had lent to him.

 

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Lady Pele, you make very good food.”

 

“I’m glad to hear that. Now, do you tree have all of your things? If the block between you lot and the spirit world was time based, I might be able to break it, and bring you back today.”

 

Avani and I exchanged glances, then glanced over to Manik together. He shook his head as he set down the mug that he had been holding. “We’re ready for you to try.”

 

“Good.” Pele gestured us closer together, then grasped Manik and Avani’s shoulders. She instructed my friends to grab my hands, and they did so. She closed her eyes, and I waited for . . . something, but nothing happened. Pele released Avani and Manik and shook her head, muttering something I couldn’t hear. She was gone in a moment, then back in the next. She raised her voice to instruct my friends to release me and grab each other’s hands. They did so quickly, and she disappeared with them and was back in a second all over again. Pele absently told them they could let go now as she stared at me with calculating eyes. “Well, it seems as if your enemy has discovered some way to keep you from being instantly transported between worlds.”

 

“Then, what do we do?” I asked. I couldn’t remember anything about getting between realms at that point, so getting back to the human realm in order to complete the revival ceremony was entirely dependent on the spirit I’d been dumped on yesterday.

 

“Well, we have to do the ceremony of course,” Pele said as she turned and opened a closet that I could have sworn wasn’t there a second ago. “Most spirits don’t bother using it because they either have the ability to get over to the human realm on their own, or they ignore humans entirely. The humans use it to get to the spirit world more, but it works just as well to go the other way as well.”

 

“What do you need for the ceremony?” Manik asked.

 

“I need, well, I have that. I have that too. I’ve also go that, and that. I need some mugwort, lemon grass, calamus root, and star anise.”

 

“And will you be needing help finding that?” I asked. “Because I’ve never heard of any of those plants.”

 

“Well, I can get them myself,” Pele said slowly as she pulled a basket out of the closet. “But if you three would like to come with me, I would enjoy the company.”

 

“I’ll come,” I volunteer. I’d spent too much time indoors lately, that spending yesterday out under the sun had felt wonderful despite my tiredness. Avani volunteered to come as well, and Manik sighed and said that he might as well go if we were all going.

 

“Wonderful!” Pele laughed, spinning in a circle with the basket. “It’s been forever since I went on herb collecting, so I hope that you don’t mind if I get you to pick a bunch of other herbs as well.

 

“Like I said earlier, Lady Pele,” Manik said as Pele put the book into her basket, “we might as well. What herbs are you looking for?”

 

“Some basil, thyme, peppermint, any herb you can find,” Pele said as she held the door of the dining room we’d been in open for us.

 

“Got any pictures?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Pele led us through the house, occasionally opening her book to a picture and calling out the name of the plant. We arrive at a door that is slightly larger than the other doors that we’d been passing through, and Pele put the book back into her basket.

 

“Stick together out there, alright?”

  
Then she opened the door. I blinked at the tall grass waving on the other side before Pele stepped out and looked around in satisfaction. I shook my head and stepped out after Avani and Manik. After all of the other things I had seen and accepted lately, it was a door that opened to a place I had not expected that fazed me.


	26. Doubting My Skills?

Yes, yes hello, I can see you. Come on in. I was going to the field with Pele, right?

 

The light on the other side of the door was golden, and there were flowers I had never seen before all around. Avani and Manik were oddly comfortable when I glanced at them, smiling at the unfamiliar flowers, and laughing as they ran ahead of Pele. It wasn’t that incomprehensible though. All I had to do was look up to see the volcano that towered over the field to know why they were so comfortable. They were comfortable with this strange land because of the fire that now ran through their blood from Agneya and Makara Jyothi.

 

They were comfortable with it in the same way I was comfortable in the water. I’d only been a sailor twice - counting the trip I’d taken with Manik to go and get Avani, but I know the sea. I know the water, I know ships better than I know the back of my eyelids. They probably knew all about the different sorts of things that they would have learned if they had grown up in these islands. I was happy for them because they were so obviously happy about the whole thing. I was happy for them because while Avani had understood my longing for change before with her love for the sand, she hadn’t understood the split of being stretched between two points of view.

 

But I was also sad for them. Except for other people who are split - except for the rare exceptions of children blessed by another element, half bloods, and liang ge jingshen, no one would truly understand. I carefully stuck close to Pele as she wandered through the field with her basket and collected herbs, occasionally glancing up with a smile to look at Avani and Manik. After a while, with her basket full of various different leaves and other things, she turned to me. “Ilesh, could you call your friends back over here please? I’ve gathered all of the herbs I needed from here, so we need to go somewhere else.”

 

“Of course,” I nodded. I turned to face Avani and MAnik. “Hey! We need to go! Can you two get back here?”

 

“Coming!” Avani yelled, and then she laughed when Manik managed to swipe at her, only just barely evading his fingers. She chased him up the hill to where Pele and I were before they stopped and had to lean down and pant.

 

“Come on,” Pele said, after giving them a moment to catch their breath. “We need to go to the spirit wilds to get the rest of the things I need.”

 

“The spirit wilds?” Manik asked. “But, aren’t those in the human realm?”

 

“For you, I suppose they would be,” Pele said, glancing over at Manik as we climbed back up to the door we had come to here through. “In the spirit world, when one says spirit wilds, we tend to be referring to the areas where more animalistic spirits dwell. Hence the name, wild.”

 

“Alright,” Manik said as we went through the door and back into the shelter of Pele’s house. “Thank you for taking the time to explain that to me.”

 

Pele didn’t answer more that an amused smile as she closed the door and led us over to the door a couple arm lengths to the left. The light was different, something I notice immediately as she opened it. It was the oddly patterned twilight that was caused by shadows instead of the almost honey warm glow that the other door had let out when it was cracked open. The door opened the rest of the way to show a dark forest that looked very much like the one that Chuangmu had stopped me from entering.

 

A shiver wormed its way up my spine as Pele, Avani, and Manik stepped out, and  I remembered Chuangmu’s words.  _ Do you want to get killed? Because that’s what will happen if you go there. _

 

“Pele, is it alright if I stay here? I’m still a bit tired from yesterday.” I didn’t step through the doorway and into the clearing with the others, and Avani frowned slightly as Pele dipped her head.

 

“Of course you can. Will you be comfortable there, or would you like me to guide you back to one of the other rooms?”

 

“I’ll be fine here,” I reassure her. “I just want to rest my feet.”

 

“Of course,” Pele said with a smile. “We should be back before too long. If you get hungry, just wander around. You should be able to find the kitchen eventually.”

 

“Thank you.” I sat down with my back against the wall opposite the doorway, and I watched as Pele and my friend disappeared into the forest. It was reassuring to see that they seemed to feel something as well, and stuck close to Pele. I don’t know why I didn’t tell any of them why I truly wanted to stay behind. I don’t know why I even stayed behind. Chuangmu had said said I would die if I entered the forest, but surely that had been a different forest. I didn’t know what I was doing! I let out a frustrated sigh and rubbed my forehead. I glanced up at the sudden sound of bushes rustling.

 

“You sure they were here?”

 

“Are you doubting my skills? Again? After the last time, I would have thought that you had learned you lesson!”

 

“I’m still not hearing a yes nor no answer in any of you spiel.”

 

“Yes! I’m sure they came this way! Is that good enough for you? Are you sure that she’ll have him with her?”

 

“Are  _ you _ doubting  _ my _ skills?”

 

“Of course not, of fearless leader. But there is a lot of money riding on this, if we capture him. More so if we can manage to get any of his friends. So, did your sources tell you that his friends were with him.” A bush moved, and suddenly I could see the pair of e gui - well, not to be rue or anything, but the right word for it is waddle. They waddled into the clearing. One, the shorter one, had grey skin, while the other had brilliantly green skin. Both of them were absently chewing on sticks that hung out of their small mouths.

 

The taller one crunched down on his stick, then shoved it into his mouth a bit more as he examined the clearing with beady black eyes, looking for something he hadn’t already seen. After a simple sweep of the clearing, during which, his eyes skip over me and the doorway, he turned to look at the green skinned e gui, who had his nose practically pressed to the ground. “Well? Where to next?”

 

“That way,” the shorter e gui said, pointing in the direction that Pele had taken my friends in, and my heart sunk, warring with itself as it tugged me between two different courses of action. I could stay here, and listen to Chuangmu. Or I could get out there and distract the e gui. I don’t stand a chance again the e gui because as fat and unthreatening as they seemed, they were still spirit with the power to throw me around randomly, however they wished, and I wouldn’t stand a chance.

 

Pele was one of the greater spirits on the other hand, and was arguably greater than Agneya and Makara Jyothi had been on account of just how much damage she could cause if she lost her temper. If Avani and Manik had continued to stick as close to her as they had when they had left, then they would be safe. E gui like these were barely more than spirits in name only, and less a spirit than a dead human. They were spirits of greed, eating anything they could get their hands on, and lusting after rare luxuries that were dangled alluringly over their heads by any spirit in need of relatively cheap labor. The things they actually gave to the e gui were always things they didn’t consider a luxury.

 

In the end, I found myself frozen in place, unable to leave when a dark aura shifted, then spread itself out over the clearing. The e gui didn’t seem to notice it beyond the green one grumbling at the sudden lack of light as he reached for the pile of what looked to be rabbit deer poop a couple of inches ahead of him and shoved some into his mouth.

 

“Alright,” he said as he lumbered to his feet. “Let’s be going.”

 

I didn’t dare move, even after the pair had left, as the dark aura seemed to examine the clearing, pressing down suddenly in a manner that would have made me want to curl up and never wake up if I hadn’t already been curled up and quite ready to try. I had the oddest feeling of eyes staring straight at ne, and through me at the same time. It was a rather disconcerting feeling, the there was absolutely nothing but trees in the direction the stare was coming from, and it eventually moved away from me, the aura following moments later.

 

I slumped, relieved for a second before I sat up straight in alarm. Avani and Pele and Manik. I didn’t know what that dark thing had been, but it couldn’t be anything good. I had no sense of how powerful the being had been, all power estimates I’d known before had come from my knowledge of spirits, but the dark thing had not been weak.

 

I stood and approached the doorway. The light had shifted ever so slightly, brightening enough to mimic mid morning, though the angle was very much so wrong. I took a deep breath, my mind still warring with me whether or not this was a good idea or not. I could smell the trees on the other side, and the damp earth. I had to at least try to warn the others. And with that thought, I stepped past the threshold.

  
And that’s all you’re getting today. See you tomorrow, children.


	27. Common Sense? What Common Sense?

Yes, hello again, nice to see you. Alright, I was going to warn them right?

 

I shivered. The air didn’t really feel different on the other side of the threshold, but at the same time, the atmosphere felt completely different. And the dark aura that had only just left was suddenly back and examining me. I stilled immediately. Drawing the thing’s attention to me instead of the e gui and my friends had’t been my intention, but if that was what happened . . .

 

“Hey! Person who’s watching me! Can we talk?”

 

. . . maybe I could keep their attention. I waited, and after a moment, shadows slithered over the ground and spiraled up and up before receding to reveal a boy who looked exactly like me. He stood there, dark aura full force and a glare of doom for a moment. Then, a panicked expression crossed his face, and he wobbled before crashing face first down into the mulch. The dark aura didn’t change or decrease, but I found it easier to ignore.

 

“Are you . . . alright?” I asked, and the boy squirmed, trying to do something. I watched him for a couple of minuted as he kept squirming, but eventually, he let out a dissatisfied grunt and gave up. I carefully approached him and knelt down next to him. “Would you like help?”

 

The boy didn’t reply, remaining stubbornly silent, so I carefully turned him over after a moment. They boy was limp in my hands, and once I had him on his back, he remained staring at the sky, so I leaned over to look into his eyes and give him a smile. “Hello.”

 

The boy frowned at me, lips working for a moment as he mouthed what I’d said. “Hallo?”

 

“Do you want help?” I asked as I offered my hand to him. He started at me hand for a moment, then tilted his head and looked down at his hand. Then he raised his arm up, and I took his hand to pull him to his feet again. He wobbled again, and I caught him before he could fall this time. “Do you want to talk?”

 

“Tak,” the boy said slowly with eyes fixed on my lips. I had a sudden sinking feeling that I recognised what was happening. This could be a new - no. I shook my head. “Ah oh tak. Ah-I am. I ammmmmm. I am aser. Aser. Aser. An? Answer! I am answer. I nnno tak. Tak. Talk. I know talk.” 

 

He looked almost ridiculously proud when he’d finished that sentence, and I couldn’t help but smile at him as my heart sank again. I was right in my guess earlier. He was a new spirit, the “answer”, in his own words, to my question. Well, I couldn’t exactly leave him alone now. It was very much so my fault that he was here at all. If I’d just left him alone, like the two e gui had, he probably wouldn’t have come to exist now. He would have eventually formed his own personality instead of becoming -

 

“Hey, don’t eat that!” I exclaimed frantically, pulling the stick he’d been about to put into his mouth away from him.

 

“But, but green and,” he used his hands to mimic a big belly, “Et - ate.”

 

Honestly, only I would come across a spirit like this.

 

“No,” I said firmly. I glanced around to see if there was anything edible, but the forest was as foreign to me as the field had been, and I wasn’t carrying any food. I turned us towards the doorway and started walking. “Come on.”

 

After a couple of uncertain steps as he watched my legs, the boy managed to stand on his own and support his own weight. A couple of steps later he was stable enough that he was barely leaning on me at all, and I silently removed my support. The next obstacle turned out to be the door itself. The boy wasn’t able to go through it, and what’s more, he couldn’t see it either. We were equally impressed by each other’s versions of reality, me with the piece of bark that he seemed to pull out of midair, and him with the way I was able to go through the tree. That discovery only took a couple of moments, and I still had to go and get him food.

 

“Stay here,” I told him firmly, and he nodded cheerfully. I turned and went back through the doorway. I stood there uncertainly for a moment before Pele’s words on what to do I got hungry came back to me. I turned right and began to wander with determination. This time, I’m absolutely sure that I heard a giggle from something, because the first turn put me in front of an open door that led to the kitchen. I mentally gave whatever it was a words of thanks as I went into the kitchen and pulled a couple of cupboards open.

 

I used my shirt as a basket and quickly piled a couple of apple oranges and containers blue raspberries into it before I turned and darted back to the doorway, I arrived just in time to see the boy walk into the trees.

 

“Hey! Hey! Wait up! Wait! Karik!”

 

_ Wait, what did I just say? _ But I didn’t have time to linger on that as the boy turned back to me with a smile. “Yes?”

 

It didn’t escape my notice that he was pronunciation is getting better.

 

“Here,” I said roughly as I handed him one of the containers of blue raspberries. “You can eat these.”

 

“Eat,” the boy mumbled, pulling one of the blue raspberries. He put it into the mouth as I sat down on the root of the tree that the doorway to Pele’s house was in and started peeling the apple orange. His eyes widened at the taste of the berry and he quickly put more into his mouth. When he was done with all of the fruit in the container I’d given him, he looked over to me and slowly edged over towards me with a crafty look in his eyes. I gave him an unamused look when he finally sat next to me, and he slumped slightly. Then I handed him the peeled apple orange and he perked back up and snatched the fruit from my hands.

 

“So, what do you think about the fruit?” I asked, and the boy glanced back up at me as he licked juice from his fingers.

 

“Fruit?”

 

“Yes fruit,” I said nodding and holding up the other container of blue raspberries and the second apple orange I’d brought with me.

 

“Which fruit?” the boy replied, his eyes fixed on the basket of blue raspberries.

 

“Both of them,” I said, handing him the basket of blue raspberries.

 

“Good! They’re good!” I watch him with a smile for a moment. It’s odd because, even though he looks so much like me, from the way I’d braided my hair that morning to his blue eyes, I couldn’t think of him as myself. For one, I’d never really like blue raspberries.

 

“Do you have a name?” I asked gently. Sometimes new spirits came with names, but most of the time it was up to the person who found them to give them one. I grimaced at the thought, but luckily, I wouldn’t have to give him a domain.

 

“Karik. Remember?” the boy blinked at me. “You called me Karik. I am Karik.”

 

Then he smiled at me, and my fingers stilled on the peel of the second orange apple. He looked so carefree.

 

“Hey. Hey.” I blinked back to myself to see him waving a hand in front of my face. “Are you alright?”

 

“I’m fine.” I shook my head and quickly pulled the rest of the peel off of the apple orange and handed it to . . . Karik. “Here.”

 

Karik’s fingers covered mine for a moment as he took the apple orange, and he looked into my eyes. Then the moment was gone, and he was scarfing down then apple orange. When he was done with the apple orange, he stood up quickly, and I glanced up at him as he extended a hand to me. “Come on.”

 

I took his hand, and he pulled me up. “What is it?”

 

“Come on. I have something to show you,” was all Karik would say as he turned and started to lead me into the forest. He didn’t let go of my hand, and I didn’t try to make him let go. I can still remember Chuangmu’s warnings about dying if I went into the forest, and I’m not entirely sure that I should be listening to Karik about something like this. He’s not exactly old enough to know anything about common sense. He’s only been an actual being for a couple of minutes. But at the same time, I glance over at him. He’s watching me with bright blue eyes from the shadows of the trees. “Trust me.”

 

“Trust you,” I murmur, and I step into the shadows with him.

 

Of course, nothing changed. No shadow monster flew out of the trees and chomped my head off. I glanced over at Karik, and he smiled at me. “Trust me.”

 

He led me through the trees. Several times, I felt a dark presence diferent from Karik’s, which had subtly retreated as we had been together, and each time, Karik simply flared his own aura, leaving me pale and shuddering for a moment until her withdrew his aura and smiled at me.

 

I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if I had gone with Pele. I can’t help but wonder where Karik was taking me. Then with a wry smile, I wondered what had happened to my common sense. This whole thing had been totally against common sense. Pele was strong, and she was obviously confident that she could defend herself. She  obviously knew wheat she was doing. My rather desperate plan, on the other hand . . .

 

Karik pulled my to a stop.

  
And that’s all for today children. Go have fun.


	28. Heart of the Sun

Hello again. I told you about Karik, right? Alright, here we go.

 

In front of me was a sort of odd little house that I hadn’t noticed at first. The door was covered in bark, and the dark windows in the roots merely seemed to be a natural result of the shadows. It was only the odd branch, protruding from a knot in the tree and then turning itself to the left that made me put together all of the little things that I could see, and I suddenly couldn’t see the tree anymore, but a little house that a tree had grown around.

 

“Karik,” I murmured, even as I reached out to brush my fingers along the door handle, “why did you bring me here?”

 

“It is your house,” Karik said softly. “I saw you come here - you were scared and you flew across the tops of the trees like a rock falling from space. I was curious. I followed you, and you dove into this house. You were scared now, so I thought . . . I thought this would help.”

 

Shalim’s house then. I squated down to peer at the windows beneath the roots, and lightly tapped one. I flinched back from it for a moment then, an echo of fire telling me how it had been made, even though I had never seen it before.

 

“Thank you,” I breathed out with a sigh as I stood. “Can you take me back now?”

 

“Back?” Karik asked, looking confused. “But, you are still scared! I remember, you go in there, and come back out better. Shouldn’t you be better?”

 

I stared at him for a moment, then sighed. It probably wouldn’t hurt to go in, and when I want to come out, I can put on a brave face. “Alright.”

 

I stepped forward and turned the door handle. The door opened outwards with a squeal, and I stepped down a couple of stairs and into the even cooler shade of the house itself. The door closed behind me, and I blinked for a moment, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the low light. There weren’t just the root windows, I could see other windows high up in the tree that let in shafts of light to illuminate the space before me.

 

And laying of the bed before me was a flickering apparition of myself. I watched him with wide eyes for a moment, eyes lingering on the mattress. I could see light on the matters - I could see the mattress through him. Blue eyes were watching me when I finally got to them, and he waved me over. I went to my knees next to the bed and bowed my head, as one is supposed if a greater spirit. It feels odd. I’ve met so many greater spirits lately and not bowed to then. A hand that looked to be made of sunlight appeared in my range of view, and though it didn’t actually touch me, I let my head tilt up.

 

“You’re my blessed aren’t you?” The words were whispered as I met his eyes. He flickered for a moment, and I could almost feel the bit of him that were surely pulling away from him and coalescing around me. I nodded. A sad smile crossed his face. “I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

 

“It’s alright,” I try to insist, but the phantom shook his head, a hand coming up to brush my cheek. Again, there is not touch, not even wind against my cheek.

 

“It’s not. It really isn’t.” He glanced down, then plunged a hand into his chest. I couldn’t stop myself from gasping, and he pulled out something that looked like a heart. He immediately went fainter, all of the glow coming from the heart that he was offering. He smiled at me and mouthed something - I think it was “I’m proud”. I took the heart, which dissolved into the air, and when I looked back down, the bed was empty.

 

I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth as I struggled to . . . I struggled with myself. I wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened. I had memories that I definitely hadn’t had before, but instead of overwhelming me with information, these memories had settled into the back of my head as if they had always been mine. I remembered holding the sun itself and just staring at it. I remember being just a bunch of random jobs that Agni and Tui had cast off. I didn’t have a  personality, or any concept of how to do really anything except for my job. Agni and Tui hadn’t really helped. Once they were done casting off jobs, and they had shaped the result into my brother and me, they declared themselves done.

 

I could feel the press of emotion and thoughts and just the weight of too much from other memories clamoring to be heard. Shalim . . . if that was who I had met truly was, shouldn’t have been there. Spirit’s selves are supposed to be scattered to the winds. In order for him to manifest enough for me to have been able to see him, he must have been somehow able to gather . . .   _ a third _ , some voice whispered to me, of his power. After a moment of uncertainty as I tried to sort through my feelings and separate them from the emotions battering me, I turned and walk over to the door. One last glance over the room, and I opened the door and stepped back out into the light.

 

I met Karik's earnest gaze evenly, once I was done blinking away tears from the sudden increase of light. I wondered for a moment, as I stared into blue eyes that only differed from those of the apparition’s in that I couldn’t see the trees through them, why my face was so popular. “Do you feel better?”

 

I considered the question for a moment. “I do. Thank you for bringing me here, Karik.”

 

“I’m glad,” Karik said happily. “Now, where do we go?”

 

“Back,” I suggest with a small smile. “Back to where you found me. I . . . I have somewhere I need to be.”

 

Karik was quiet for a moment as he reached up and cupped my cheek. “If that is what you want.”

 

He grabbed my hand, turned, and started to lead me through the forest again. More creatures approached us this time as we walked, but each one was repelled by a quick flare of  **danger** from Karik as we walked. I became more resistant to the aura each time he brought it out, until I almost didn’t notice it when the sense danger flared. That should tell you how many creatures approached us in a much more accurate fashion than anything else I could say.

 

We arrived back at the clearing to find Pele, Avani, and Manik waiting for us. Well, when I say waiting, I mean pacing at yelling at each other. Karik shrank back as soon we started hearing them, but I laughed and grabbed his hand.

 

“Trust me?” I asked him with a bright smile. It was my turn to be the one to know what to do. He glanced at me, jerking for a moment at the sound of another spurt of arguments, then down at my hand. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed it. I led him forward slowly and gently, as if he was a skittish ostrich camel calf.

 

“Avani! Manik! I’m alright!” I called when I could see them, and my friends turned to look at me. Karik hid himself behind a tree, and I let him, stopping at the edge of the clearing/

 

“Ilesh! Where have you been! Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? You said you weren’t feeling well, then you were gone when we came back! You weren’t in the house, you were gone!”

 

“There was something I had to do,” I said calmly. I pulled Karik gently out into the open, and Avani’s eyes lingered on him for a second before she turned back to me.

 

“So, where did you find this doppelganger?” Her voice was deceptively calm.

 

“He might be, you know, a new spirit. That I might, you know, have accidentally created.” I winced at the expression on Avani’s face. It was furious and resigned all at the same time. Karik shifted as much as he could to hide behind me, and Avani’s expression softened even more as she sighed and shook her head.

 

“Come on. Pele’s got everything she needs to get you back to the human world. You can tell me about him inside,” Avani said, and Pele calmly nodded at me as my friends went back inside. She motioned me closer, and placed a hand on Karik’s forehead.

 

“There,” she said, “he’ll be able to come in now.”

 

“Thank you, Lady Pele,” I said with a grateful nod.

 

She gave me a smile, and I followed her back into her home, pulling Karik behind me gently. His eyes were wide as we passed through the doorway, and Pele shut the door behind her. Then she led us through several twists and turns before she pulled open another door. Behind this door, there wasn’t another scene like the forest and the meadow, and I found myself glad. Instead, there was a room full of herbs and drying vegetables and spices. Pele began grab a couple of different things and put them into her basket calmly.

 

“So. Tell me a story,” Avani said, keeping her voice decidedly neutral. “Who is he, why is he here, and all that.”

 

“His name is Karik,” I replied, urging him forward again. His grip on my hand was practically crushing my fingers, but he went forwards willingly enough. “And I wasn’t lying earlier. He is a new spirit. I asked him a question before he had a form, and this was how he decided to answer me.”

 

“You sure? There are plenty of spirits that mimic appearances.”

 

“Fairly sure, yes.”

 

“Come on. Let’s get you to the human world,“ Pele said before any more words could be spoken.

  
And that’s all for today. See you tomorrow!


	29. My Lord

Hello again you lot, nice to see you again. Alright, Pele was about to start sending us back to the human world, right?

 

Pele led us back through her home to a large empty room with a clear floor.

 

“Alright, Karik,” she said gently as she set down her basket and turned around. “Will you be staying here, or coming with us? Before you decide, you should know that Ilesh won’t be around much longer. If you do stay here, I will protect you. I can’t guarantee anything if you come with us.”

 

Karik glanced from Pele to me uncertainly, and I gave him a gentle nod. What I meant by the nod was, _yes, I’m really not going to be there long, It’s alright if you stay here_ . Considering his reply, and the way his expression became firmer, I’m guessing that Karik took it the other way and thought that I meant _it’s alright if you come with us_ . That was fine as well, but I’m pretty sure that he totally missed the whole _not going to be there long_ thing.

 

“I’m coming,” Karik told Pele, and she nodded in reply. Then she knelt down, started taking things from the basket on her hip, and placing the things on the floor. Once there was nothing left in her basket, Pele came over to the four of us and started calmly moving us until we stood within the web of herbs.

 

“Are you ready to go back?” Pele asked quietly, and I nodded. I could see the others nodding. Pele began to walk around our circle, dragging her left leg in a continuous line with her. When she passed me, I heard her quietly murmuring something, but other than that, that only sound in the room was our breathing and my heart beating a frantic tattoo in my ears.

 

The light that had seemed to come from somewhere in the general area of the ceiling flickered once, then went dark, but instead of leaving us in total darkness, we found that the web of herds that had been lain out were glowing green. Pele stopped across from me, her circuit of the herbs complete. I stared into her eyes for a moment, the orange and gold glowing in their own right.

 

Then found myself staring at the sun, and I quickly glanced down, and away from the brightness. A deep breath, and an image flashed behind my eyes - **onto the soil of the human world** \- as I glanced up - **take a deep breath, and cast my eyes to the sky** **-**  to see Honoiro’s caldera.

 

“Ilesh,” Manik called, and I turned to see him and Avani watching me. Avani’s breakdown flashed behind my eyes, the fragile broken slant of her eyes as I watch her. She looks so strong right now, not like she hadn’t broken, but something had happened to glue the pieces together. “Where are we going?”

 

“Nowhere,” I told him, turning to look at the volcano once again. “Shalim died here. Right where I am right now.”

 

“Don’t think I’m about to just let you go!” a voice carried on the wind. I turned to see Senge flying at me. Her hair was tangled, truly more of a mane now than it had been before, and her eyes were wild as she flew at me with her knife.

 

“The world is falling apart, and you still want to stop me?” I asked her, even as I drew my knife. I knocked her knife to the side and ducked as she hurled past me and into the ground. “Manik! Set up the ceremony!”

 

I couldn’t turn to watch. The harsh clang of Senge’s knife on mine as I desperately tried to keep dodging and deflecting. Weak as Senge looks right now, as tired with dark smudges, like bruises, beneath her eyes, I’m still only a human, and I can already feel myself tiring. Then beats against me, and more than once it almost blinded me. Dirt was everywhere, sticking to the sweat, like the sweat that I could taste in my mouth as I gasped for breath.

 

“I need blood!” Manik yelled from behind me as I dodged out of the way once again, and I didn’t pause to slice the back of my hand open.

 

“Come and get it!” I yelled, and then dived to the side. When I came up, I stepped back involuntarily at the sight of blue eyes only inches from mine. Karik caught my hand and wiped off the blood with a scrap of fabric.

 

“Have fun,” he said, then he whipped me around and pushed me away just in time to avoid Senge as she wildly swung down at me. I coughed as I hit the dust, and I barely managed to roll out of the way of the sun daisy’s next stab. I remembered something as I threw myself to my feet. Senge wanted Shalim’s ability to hold the sun -

 

“Have you found what you wanted yet?” I asked Senge in between gasps and high ringing sound of metal on metal. She only screeched at me and threw herself at me again.

 

“Manik, how much longer are you going to take? Ilesh can’t go much longer!” Avani snapped in the background.

 

“I can step in if I need to,” Karik offered, and Avani scoffed.

 

“I’m almost done,” Manik snapped. “This may be a battle ritual, but that doesn’t make it fast, and it’ll go faster if you would stop interrupting me!”

 

Every breath felt like I was breathing in a sand storm. My eyes were dry. Sweat ran freely, stinging my eyes, filling my mouth with salt, and making my grip on my knife loose. Then, in one final blow, Senge swatted my knife away from me with enough force to send me sprawling. Senge loomed over me suddenly, and I closed my eyes as she screamed made to plunge her knife down -

 

**Well. That was a close one.**

 

_Who . . ._

 

**Hello, blessed.**

 

I opened my eyes to a bright, golden warmth, and another pair of blue eyes. _Shalim._

 

 **Are you ready?** the spirit asked. I considered the question. I flt oddly disconnected from my emotions for a moment. The arguments for my fear drifted up from the depths of my consciousness as I considered the questions. I didn’t want to leave my friends behind. I didn’t want to leave my family behind. Neither of my parents even knew I was doing this.

 

But if I didn’t do this - if I didn’t accept Shalim back, we would all be simply gone. Worse than being dead, there would be nothing as the world and everything Inari had created, everything created by Inari’s creations, would be gone as if none of it had ever existed. It was already happening. I lost one set of protectors to fighting the chaos.

 

_I have to do this. I don’t have to be ready. I won’t ever be ready if we wait._

 

Shalim gave me a tender smile, and he reached forward. Hands clasped hands, then arms wrapped around each other as we came closer and closer together. I rested my cheek on Shalim’s shoulder with a sigh as form lost importance. I lived a thousand memories at once, and I remembered them because these were not unfamiliar, these were my memories. Some I paused on for a little, a trillionth of that moment more spent watching my brother, Ryung’s face, watching my father, Sese leave for the Southern Water tribes to catch up with his family, watching as Chuangmu read with me, watching Jaya nuzzle me in an attempt to find my dried date plumbs.

 

I opened my eyes, alone in that warmth, and I thought, _thank you_. I reached up to touch the blank mask on my face. I hadn’t taken it off after we arrived back in the human world. I hadn’t had the time to, what with Senge attacking me. I traced the smoothness curiously for a moment before I pressed ever so slightly. Texture raced out from my fingers, porcelain giving way to wood, ridges and valleys forming, and I knew that if I had been able to see the mask, it would be colored as well, colored the same indigo of dusk, a true dusk.

 

Then I woke up.

 

“Rrrrrrah!” Senge screamed, the knife hurtling downwards. I grabbed her wrist, and with a quick movement, she was the one on her back, her arms pinned above her head, and her hips pinned by the simple expedient of sitting on her.

 

“It’s done!” Manik yelled, and I looked up in time to see him turn around and falter. Aani was staring at me with an unreadable expression on her face, and Karik looked to be in awe of me. Manik looked into my eyes across the space between us, and I could practically see his thinking before he bowed to me like he had bowed to Lady Kun on the day I met him. “Lord Shalim.”

 

There was a moment of silence where even Lady Era’s gentle winds did not make a noise. Thin I stood dragging Senge to her feet. The daisy spirit was silent, only staring at my mask mutely.

 

“Avani.”

 

My friend (. . . to me at least. I didn’t know what she thought of me at that moment in time.) didn’t move, only regarding me with emotionless eyes.

 

"Should my parents ask, it's too late. I stood and I bled indigo skies."

 

She nodded, her face remaining emotionless. “I’ll tell them.”

 

“Manik.”

 

The priest jerked slightly. I crossed the space between us, careful not to let Senge go, and sed a finger to push his chest up to that he was standing straight. He had to look down, I still wasn’t as tall as him.

 

“That’s better. I’ll make sure Lady Kun knows what hard work you’ve done. And don’t be a stranger. I’ll be listening.”

 

“My lord.”

 

He didn’t bow this time, but the word were enough to make themselves felt. His lord, when before he had only had a lady. I turned to Karik, who was watching me with fascinated eyes.

 

“Do you want to come with me still?”

 

“I’m an answer,” Karik replied after a moment. “I shouldn't leave my questioner until I’ve been forgotten.”

 

I smiled slightly and held out a hand. He took it, and I _shifted_ -

  
Look at the time! I’ll see you lot tomorrow. No, I’m it finishing it today, so shoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, we're almost all the way there!


	30. And They All Lived

I know you want to finish this, so can you stop crawling all over the furniture and sit down? Thank you! So, we’re on the aftermath now, as you already knew.

 

Let’s see. So, I  shifted and brought Karik with me to the sky. He sort of hovered next to me as I grabbed the sun and pulled -

 

In comparison to the amount of time the sun had been up, it didn’t really take long for it to come down, and soon enough, the dark blue of indigo bled through the oranges and other bright colors of sunset. When I was done with that, I carefully tucked away the sun and left the sky with Karik and Senge to go and find my brother. I gave him the two spirits to look after, then I went to go find the places lost to chaos.

 

I arrived to find a huge gathering of spirits panting as they eyed the chaos. Agneya glanced up as I landed beside her, then gave me a weary smile.

 

“You’re back. That explains why it stopped expanding. Welcome back, big brother.”

 

“It’s good to be back,” I replied. Then I stepped forward and let myself bleed indigo as I walked fearlessly into the chaos. This was bright chaos, caused by a lack of darkness, so I brought darkness back and I spread it. There was a ragged cheer when spirits realized the chaos we retreating before me, every step I took revealing grass and sand and rock and dirt.

 

Spirits left bit by bit as the darkness retreated. Most of them had been watching it, fighting it for long enough that they only needed to know that its was gone. They’d had enough of throwing themselves against something they couldn’t beat. My last step, the last bit of chaos that was unusual, that was unnatural, there were only three spirits left as far as I could see. One last step, and  _ they _ solidified entirely, collapsing back into Imi’s arms.

 

Inari stepped forward to help Order support Chaos, and I could hear Chaos talking as I left. “I’m sorry. I tried to stay in control, but it was too much. In the end, it was all I could do to get somewhere where no one would be hurt.”

 

The world turned, the sun came up, and I brought it down. Ryung and I turned Senge in to Inari, and we kept Karik. His domain became clear before too long with the way he was always hanging around us, and the way the color of his eyes changed. I hadn’t noticed that first time I took the sun down after the long day, but his eyes had reflected the colors of the sky.

 

In the human realm, too, time moved on. Avani first taught herself how to fight, learning from the women of the Fire Islands, then dressing up as a man to take lesson in how to truly earthbend. She never stopped using her fans, and once she felt that she had learned enough, she created a whole new style of fighting around them. Usually, she used the fans that my tribe had gotten for her, but sometimes, I saw her as I was bringing the sun down, and she danced with her grandmother’s fan.

 

Manik set up his own little temple on Tsuribari Island, with two shrines instead of the usual single shrine that most temple had. One was to Lady Kun, and the other was to me. I’m fairly sure he knew exactly who his ‘mysterious’ benefactor was, but he never mentioned it in his prayers to me, and I always put any offerings from him back into his pantry as soon as he had gone to sleep..

 

Niyakedo, as it turned out, had lived, and so had most of the crew of the boat. She’d gotten married to Hiatsui, and they’d gone looking for my parents with Avani to give them my message.

 

This isn’t really one of those stories where I can tell you that they lived happily ever after. They fought and they were broken, but there is one thing I can tell you. They all lived.

 

_ This is a transcription of what I can remember of the story told to me when I was a child. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but I can reassure you that this one long day did, indeed exist. _

 

 

  * __Bard Historian Daruka Kahae__



 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm sorry this has been so long in coming, I have been working on the second half of I Bled Indigo Skies, but I decided to do NaNoWriMo, and haven't finished that. So, here's what I'm doing for NaNoWriMo, it's a spirit tale from the Si Wong Desert. I hope you like it!


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